


Operation: Aurora

by shockfactor



Category: RWBY, XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Aliens, Fantastic Racism, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, is it platonic or poly?, you don't have to read O:GH to understand this shit, you'll never fucking know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shockfactor/pseuds/shockfactor
Summary: Earth has been under ADVENT rule for the past 20 years, and the world has changed drastically. Government crackdowns, black-bag raids on peaceful communities, people disappearing from their homes, walking into gene therapy clinics and never coming back. It's a time of war, and XCOM are the closest thing Earth has to champions. They're losing.Or at least, they think they're losing, but the kids who literally fell out of thin air seem intent on changing their minds.A remake of OPERATION: GO HOME.
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Lie Ren/Pyrrha Nikos/Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 26
Kudos: 17





	1. Two Worlds Collide

**Author's Note:**

> Let's. Fucking. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

_June 9th, 2035_

_It’s not getting any easier._

_ADVENT’s ramping up their force deployments. Sergeant MacAuley ran into Mutons during the mission to rescue that engineer girl from that Lost clusterfuck in Old Melbourne, lost Sykes and Nkidze. It hit him hard. He’s a good man, but a shite leader on his best day. Thinking of having him under my wing for this next op to get him out of the line, maybe keep him there if he does a bang-up job._

_Jane’s still a bit nattered about the whole thing. Giving me shit for overextending my teams, saying I don’t need to be on the front line. Bollocks. If not me, who? Everyone else from Strike One is LONG dead._

_Gene mods under control. Still in some pain, but it’s manageable. A few spikes lately, but I usually just isolate and wait for them to blow over. People have learned to leave me be._

_Got an operation today. We think we might have Vahlen. Signal coming out from the Sonora desert, weak. I could recognize that fucking voice anywhere. What she did to me wasn’t right, but she’s the smartest egghead we had. Have to at least try and rescue her._

_Is it bad that I hope we don’t find her? Not sure what I’d do if we did._

_Will update when we’re homeward bound. Got a bad feeling._

* * *

Captain Adam Llewyn Jones had been in XCOM for a long time—22 years, to be exact—and he’d been a soldier for far longer. In all that time, he’d never expected to rise in the ranks, or to be in charge of such a motley crew as the one that the Commander had placed in front of him here and now. None of them were soldiers by trade, at best there were a few who had experience defending settlements from ADVENT incursion, but that was about as in-depth as ‘point gun at alien and pull trigger until alien dead’. Wasn’t exactly rocket science, nor was it the best measure of talent for the sort of war XCOM had found itself in.

Funny. He’d been fighting insurgents before he joined XCOM. Now, he _was_ the insurgent. Irony of ironies. 

The thing about insurgencies was that they relied on everymen, people that looked just like everyone else to do the most psychological damage. That was what the Commander, Bradford, and himself had been relying on when they started recruiting again in the 20s. They wanted the nobodies, the passing busybodies on crowded street corners, the disillusioned daydreamer with a dismal dayjob. They’d got quite a few odd characters, but they were still nobodies that could still blend in with the world under ADVENT thumb. That was what was important to Adam. Any new recruit wasn’t a wanted man until the cameras were on them, and then there were the ones like Braddock, who didn’t even allow that. 

He’d be a good pick for this operation. Adam closed the journaling function on his PDA and opened up comms with the Commander, pulling up a team roster and immediately inserting Corporal Roderick Braddock into the second slot. The guy was a mystery wrapped inside an enigma, for sure, always wore a face-concealing mask and a helmet to match, and a sort of vague familiarity in his voice that Adam couldn’t quite place. One thing was for sure- the man took very little of this business seriously. He seemed to treat being an XCOM operative as one big gaffe, a grand comedy in which he’d play his role to the hilt.

 _‘Play it he bloody well does,’_ Adam thought to himself. _‘That ADVENT General didn’t know what hit him.’_

Murphy was next to be added to his roster. ‘Murphy’ was a nickname, if Adam recalled correctly. Not his nickname with the boys, mind, they had far less flattering nicknames for the Aussie, but he’d told Adam once that ‘George MacAuley’ didn’t have quite the ring to it that ‘Murphy MacAuley’ did. Adam personally found it a bit humorous that the most violent man he’d met outside of the service was named _George_ , but he couldn’t deny that when focused, that violence was very effective.

The rest of the team was more guesswork and filling gaps than anything. They’d need long-range overwatch, and as much as Adam was a solid hand with his rifle, he needed to be up front to lead, especially with the volatile personalities the Commander had slapped him with. If Jane was talking the lead, he’d stay on overwatch, no problem, but that wasn’t going to happen until they had a talk, and Adam was in no mood for a Jane Talk. As such, Sophie Thomas found herself on the roster next. She was the only sharpshooter on deck not wounded or exhausted, just his luck. She was a decent shot, at least. Maybe if she learned to shut up, she’d get better faster.

Finally… Jerry. Oh, Jerry. Good kid, sharp like a knife, good with one, too. When he wasn’t out in the field, he was sawboning for Tygan. That was the problem, though—he was a doctor (or rather, a medical student), not a warrior. Adam could see the boy cracking. As much as he hated to drag Jerry out, this was a high risk operation. He needed the medic.

With that, the roster was filled out, and within a minute, the PA was blaring. The Commander was always right on time with him, something that Adam had always taken for granted before the war. Nowadays, where their every waking moment was spent worrying about when ADVENT was going to try and blast them out of the sky or kill the local civilians again, it was nice to not have to wait twenty minutes just to chat with the boss. 

The Avenger wasn’t too busy this late at night, so it wasn’t much of a walk to the armory to kit up. As usual, Adam beat the others there by a fair margin, a consequence of having nothing better to do than to wait for the call. By the time he’d put his Spider Suit on, the team was finally starting to file into the armory. 

“Get your kit on and sack up, we’ve got a job to do,” Adam ordered, grabbing his rifle from the rack and working the bolt. He hadn’t been a sniper when the war started- the Commander had him as a support guy out in the front, mostly delivering close cover and suppression fire. As time went on, being one of the better shots in the rapidly-dwindling roster meant that he’d been given a DMR, and by a certain point they’d just skipped the middleman and given him a sniper rifle. Combined with the gene mods that Vahlen packed into his brain with his very, _very_ coerced consent, and he’d become a startlingly effective killing machine. 

It wasn’t worth the price tag. No amount of painkillers really helped with the ache of your very genetic structure breaking down from a lack of replicable material, hypersensitive and overstimulated nerves letting you _feel_ the cells in your body dying en masse. In exchange for a living superweapon, Adam had exchanged his life. He wouldn’t make it to sixty, Tygan said. Just meant that he’d have to work faster.

Not that his team were making it easy for him. They seemed to be taking their sweet fucking time. 

“Come on, you lot,” Adam said, starting towards the hangar, stopping only to confront Murphy. The man had entered the armory fully kitted up, save for his weapons, which had surprised Adam a bit. Combined with the man’s eerie silence and unusually stoic demeanor, Adam had to at least check in on the Aussie. “High and tight, Murphy?”

Murphy let out a sharp exhale as he looked up from making a last-minute adjustment to the old-world LMG he’d been so used to using, slamming the cover shut and racking the action to ready the weapon up. With that done, he turned his steely gaze to Adam, his expression cold and emotionless. 

“I’m good to go,” he replied icily.

“Are you sure, lad, I know it’s only been a few days-”

“I _said_ I’m good to go, _sir_.”

With that, Murphy pushed past Adam to make his own way to the hangar, leaving the veteran with a bit more concern for Murphy than usual. The man could take care of himself, yes, but combat fatigue was a hell of a thing to face alone. 

“Right, then,” Adam muttered under his breath.

“Well, he’s in a fine fucking mood,” Roderick noted, drawing Adam’s attention to the masked man as he sheathed his blade on his back and grabbed a pair of smoke grenades. 

“I don’t give two fucks what kind of mood he’s in,” Sophie replied, irate. “Man’s fuckin’ incompetent. Gets two people killed and the Commander gives him a _promotion_. Makes me wanna frag the lot of you and make Sergeant by the end of the day.”

“That’s uncalled for, man,” Jerry mumbled, a grave mistake. Sophie was quick to redirect her sass to whoever she felt deserved it, and Jerry might as well have thrown himself into the line of fire headfirst. “That whole thing was a mess, he did everything he could.”

“Shoulda taken you and gotten your dumb ass killed instead of Sykes, given us someone who can actually fucking shoot instead of hiding behind his lady friend like a wee fucking pus-,” Sophie spat. 

“Hey!” Roderick protested, “lay off the guy, fuck’s sake.”

Adam was quick to defuse the situation, or to do his best at it, stepping between the medic and the sharpshooter and giving the latter the best death glare he could muster.

“Skyranger. _Now.”_

Sophie gave him a smug grin, and inched past him, giving her pistol a little twirl before holstering it. Adam gave a ragged sigh before giving Jerry a concerned look.

“Thanks, boss.” Jerry offered a shy, sincere thumbs up, one that Adam returned with a short, impromptu salute. Jerry was a good kid, even if he was a shit soldier. He could hold his own just enough to avoid the worst of what the aliens threw at them, but _only_ just. 

“Now that that pleasant business is out of the way, let’s get set to go, yeah?” 

Roderick forewent response in lieu of walking past Adam and giving him a firm clap on the shoulder. Before Jerry could leave, though, Adam stepped in front of him. 

“Private, I know you’ve been getting a lot of shit since Houston. You alright?”

Jerry shrugged, smiling nervously, trying to play it off. He couldn’t even meet Adam’s eye. “I’m used to it, Cap.”

“You shouldn’t have to be. Whether people want to acknowledge it or not, we’re a unit, and that means we have to work _together_. She gives you any more shit when I’m not around, you come to me immediately, and I’ll set her right.”

“That’s not gonna be-” Jerry started.

“I said, _I’ll set her right_. You’re the only field medic we’ve got now that Nkidze’s gone, and I don’t need an uppity brat with an attitude that far outpaces her ability to bring us all down. I don’t care how used to it you are, I don’t care if you think you deserve it, you come to me." Adam pressed a finger forcefully into Jerry's breastplate to emphasize the point. "That’s an order.”

Jerry sighed, obviously not happy with the whole thing. When it came to others, he was quick to try and mend both wounds and fences, but he’d sit and suffer in silence as long as he felt he needed to if it was only him taking the fire. Self-sacrifice only got you so far. The glow in Adam's veins was living testimony to that truth.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now let’s get out there, yeah? Got a job to do.”

Jerry nodded, and followed Adam out of the armory and to the hangar. Sophie, Murphy and Roderick were all waiting by the Skyranger, as were the Central Officer, all kitted up and ready for combat, and the Commander. Bradford had insisted, against the Commander’s wishes, that he was going out there to find Vahlen, and he’d heard no argument. Adam certainly wasn’t going to complain- he and Bradford had done more than their fair share of fighting side-by-side in the interim between the war and getting the Avenger, and the old vet made a good dance partner in the field. Wasn’t bad with a sword, either, to say he was self taught. 

The Commander had been giving Murphy a bit of talking to when Adam arrived, drawing her attention away for a spell.

“Captain,” she greeted him. “You briefed the team?”

“Figured you’d want to, ma’am,” he replied. 

“No problem. Rest of the team ready to go?”

“Just about.” 

“Alright.” With that, Grace turned back to Murphy. “Are you _sure_ you’re ready for this, Murphy? I understand if you need time-”

“If everyone would stop _fucking_ reminding me, maybe I’d be able to do my job, yeah, miss?” Murphy interrupted, clearly agitated. It wasn’t easy for anyone losing a team, and considering that he was on a covert op, that meant he’d had to carry an unconscious escort out on his back while trying to keep that VIP alive all on his own. He’d come back looking like he’d walked through hell twice, and he sounded like it too. Not that he was ever a particularly friendly man, but he reminded Adam too much of himself on his worst days. 

“Murphy, we’re just trying to make sure you’re at one-hundred percent,” Adam assured him. “I trust you, wouldn’t have called you up for this one otherwise, but you’ve been through the wringer. We can get somebody else.” 

“You wouldn’t have called me if you wanted someone else, would you?” he asked, and for that, Adam had no reply. Thankfully, Roderick was there to interrupt the inevitable uncomfortable conversation that would have followed, had Murphy tried to press him.

“So, Great Commandy One!” he exclaimed. “Pray tell, why is the good Central Officer in full combat gear? I’m surprised that he still runs with us youngsters in his old age, figured the arthritis-”

“Can it, Braddock,” Bradford replied. Roderick’s theatrics most certainly weren’t for everyone, but Adam at least found them _mostly_ funny, when he wasn’t aiming below the belt. “How’s the rest of the team looking?”

“About as ready to kill each other as we are to kill ADVENT, I think. Between Motor Mouth, Private Jitters, myself, and Kangaroo Rambo here, you’ve got a SNAFU in the making.”

“I know how to put together a team, Roderick, we’ll be fine,” Adam stated, receiving a wheezing laugh in reply. 

“Yeah, we’ll be fine, so long as you and Bradford babysit us all the way through this op... What is this op, anyway?”

The Commander cleared her throat, before beginning her explanation. “Adam, you already know the score. The rest of you haven’t been with XCOM very long, so I’ll give you a quick rundown. During the war, we had a science officer, an Austrian by the name of Doctor Moira Vahlen. When the aliens hit our main base in the closing months of the conflict, most of our personnel were either killed or captured, but a few of us managed to get out. We were mostly scattered and unable to pull a cohesive unit together. We couldn’t find Moira or most of the science division by the time we’d gathered up who we could, and we’ve had no sign of her since we managed to get a hold of the Avenger… until now.”

Bradford took over, stepping towards the team as he spoke. “That wrecked Skyranger we found in the Sonora desert was carrying an outbound distress call- it’s Vahlen. While we’re still looking into the ghost signal in the Chinese Containment Zone, we have an opportunity to get one of the brightest scientific minds on Earth back in XCOM’s corner. This call was sent recently- only a few days before we found the downed bird. It’s possible that she’s still alive, or that if she escaped, we can at least get a lead on where she went. Our objective is to investigate the source of the distress signal, and find any intel that may lead to Vahlen.”

“The Central Officer will be taking point on this operation,” Adam explained. “If he says jump, you jump. Roddy, you and I will be point men. Sophie, Murphy, provide cover fire. Jerry, you keep your eyes up and that GREMLIN’s sensor running. I want zero casualties here. We’re operating in the blind, and I don’t know what the situation’s gonna look like, so play it slow and safe. You got it?”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply. 

“Then let’s mount up and get our woman.” With that, Adam started off towards the Skyranger. He somehow doubted they’d find Vahlen out there, but on the off chance that she was out there, maybe, just maybe, she’d have the answers he needed.

* * *

  
  


_Meanwhile_

_Remnant, Forever Fall_

Jaune Arc was very, very, _very_ bored.

He’d always believed that becoming a Huntsman was an exciting prospect, a chance to escape the dull monotony of everyday life on Remnant. What his dad and his grandfather hadn’t mentioned was that being a Huntsman in this day and age required tedious, hum-drum schooling that was only marginally more interesting than the usual stuff in that you occasionally got to swing your weapons around at targets, other people, and on the odd occasion, a couple of weak Grimm. 

Today, he wasn’t even getting to do that. The first-years had been sent out… _artifact hunting._ Well, not even artifact hunting, so much as studying the ancient ruins that littered Forever Fall and writing reports on what they found. It was as boring as it sounded- about the only thing that kept Jaune from finding a rock to fall asleep behind was Nora’s boundless enthusiasm and endless font of meaningless conversation—likely her own method to combat her boredom—and Pyrrha being so close to him that escaping for a power nap was out of the question. 

Currently, they’d at least managed to find something _interesting_. There was a large, busted-up ampitheatre in the middle of a low clearing, with a raised platform in the center of it, and some strange markings in circular patterns throughout the stone. Pyrrha had busied herself copying said markings down, Nora was currently attempting to balance on top of one of the nearby pillars, while Ren and Jaune just… stared at it, for lack of anything better to do. 

“What do you think it is?” Jaune asked.

“I’m not sure,” Ren replied. “The Hieroglyphs are in Old Valean. I figured you might be able to read them.”

“Dude, just because I’m from here doesn’t mean I read and speak ancient languages. Besides, I’m, uh… not doing too well in that class.”

“You could always ask Pyrrha for help.”

“Man, she already does so much, I don’t know if I-”

“Alright, I think I got it,” Pyrrha interrupted, giving the piece of paper she’d been writing on a once-over. “I think this may have been an old religious site of some kind, perhaps an altar.”

“Yeah?” Jaune replied.

“I’m rather certain. Take a look at this.”

Pyrrha walked over and showed the paper to her teammates, line after line of impeccably-transcribed Old Valean characters, with neatly-written translations beneath them. Add ‘multilingual’ to Pyrrha’s list of many talents. 

“That was fast,” Jaune noted.

“It’s not hard to find a translator online,” Pyrrha explained. “It was mostly just taking what we learned from class and using that to fill in the blanks.”

Oh. Well, now he felt dumb.

“ _It has happened before, and it will happen again, and only the Gods know how it will end, only the gods know how it will end, it has happened before and it will happen again._ ” Ren read. “It repeats from there, around the base of the floor. Hm. Pyrrha, is there any sort of cyclical motif in Old Valean religion?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“I remember my mom used to tell me about an ‘Infinite Man’, once,” Jaune replied, finally happy that he was able to contribute _something_ interesting. “He was a guy who could reincarnate after he died, he went around helping people and trying to unite humanity. He had a religion around him, too. Maybe that was it?” 

“I believe I’ve heard that story as well,” Pyrrha agreed. “Perhaps this was a site dedicated to him. It would explain the circular designs and the orientation of the text.”

Before Jaune could offer his arguably useless two lien, their conversation was brought to a screeching halt by gunfire. Lots of gunfire. 

“That’s close,” Ren noted.

“Our classmates must have run into Grimm,” Pyrrha said, turning to Jaune. “We should assist them.” 

“Yeah, yeah, good idea,” Jaune agreed, trying his best to put himself in ‘leader mode’ as he looked up the pillars at the entirely-unbothered Nora. “Nora!”

“Youuuu got it!” With that, Nora swung Magnhild off her back, rearing back and preparing to…

Oh, _no_. 

“Nora, don’t-!” Jaune protested, but alas, he fell on deaf ears. Nora launched herself through the air using the pillar as a launching point, sending the ancient stone tumbling down as she went sailing in the direction of the gunfire, leaving her team in the dust. 

“I guess we have some catching up to do, then,” Ren deadpanned, before taking off running after her. Jaune followed suit, with Pyrrha bringing up the rear as they trampled through the blood-red underbrush of Forever Fall, the gunfire growing louder with every step. Still, Jaune couldn’t help but note that while the fire was getting louder, it sounded like there was less and less of it. That did _not_ bode well. He didn’t recognize the distinct report of any of Team RWBY’s firearms, or hear any dust explosions that would have heralded Myrtenaster, but someone was struggling nonetheless. 

Just as suddenly as it had started, the gunfire stopped, and the forest was silent once more, save for the low, agitated hum of distant rapier wasps and the chirping of birds. 

“It’s stopped,” Pyrrha noted, slowing down and pulling Miló off her hip, the weapon shifting to rifle form. “They may have been able to handle the disturbance on their own.”

“It sounded like they were slowing down before it stopped, like there were less guns firing,” Jaune explained. “I don’t think they did.”

“Then all the more reason to hurry,” Ren said, just as a loud _bang_ ahead of them heralded Nora’s landing. Then, a surprised shout. “Nora?” Ren shouted back, concern evident in his voice.

“Guys, it’s bad!” Nora shouted back. 

The trio broke through into a rather large clearing, dotted with more ruined pillars and stone across the field… and a rather large number of dead bodies. As much as Jaune hated to think about it this way, none of them appeared to be Beacon students, which was relieving. Still, that was a lot of bodies, wearing uniforms and carrying firearms that looked nothing like Jaune had ever seen before. 

“Oh, Brothers…” Pyrrha muttered, looking around. “Where’s the Grimm?”

“I didn’t see anything on my way over,” Nora replied. “There’s some footprints, but I don’t really recognize them off the top of my head. Is there anyone still alive?”

Jaune wasn’t holding out a lot of hope, looking around the clearing for any signs of life. His eye caught a small, broken-down building, no larger than a shed. Perfect place to hide from a Grimm. “Hey, anyone in there? You can come out, it’s safe!”

There was no response. Jaune began to approach the building, peeking his head into the dark just in time to catch two men desperately trying to shush him, both wearing the same uniforms that the bodies were wearing. 

“Shut the fuck up, it’s gonna come back!” one of them, a man with curly blonde hair and a wispy beard, whispered harshly.

“Kid, you need to leave, now!” the other one, a guy with a helmet and some kind of facemask, said. 

“What’s gonna come back?” Jaune asked.

“The fucking-” the blonde started, just in time for an ear-splitting roar to erupt through the clearing. Jaune turned back just in time to see a Beowulf go sailing through the treeline and into the air—rather, _half_ of a Beowolf. “Shit!”

“Stay here,” Jaune said, drawing his sword and extending his shield as he went to the side of his teammates, who had all readied their own weapons and turned to face the direction the Beowulf had come from. “What’s going on?”

“Something in those woods just killed a Beowulf,” Ren stated. “That _something_ sounds like it’s heading our way.” 

“And it doesn’t sound friendly,” Nora added. “Did you find something?”

“There’s two guys left in that little ruined building over there. I think whatever that thing is out there had something to do with these bodies,” Jaune replied. “Where’s Team RWBY?”

“They’re supposed to be a little further into the woods, I’ll put out a distress signal.” Pyrrha fished her Scroll from the satchel on her belt and got to work, leaving the rest of the team to deal with the fact that another Beowulf, this one fully intact, had launched itself at team JNPR, all teeth, claws, and howl. Jaune barely had time to throw his shield up before he got hit, the Beowolf landing with all its weight on him and knocking him to the ground. Just when he thought there was going to be claws at his neck and teeth snapping down at his face, though… the Beowolf’s head erupted in black smoke as a shot from Miló sent it flopping lifelessly to his side. Pyrrha stepped over and pulled Jaune to his feet with one of her usual half-smiles as she examined him. 

“Are you alright? Did you get your Aura up in time?” she asked, an almost motherly concern in her voice, as always. Jaune sure had gotten lucky with his partner. 

“Yeah, I’m good. Just shaken up.” With that, he readied his weapons again. Just in time. 

A cluster of trees in front of them split and splintered as another Beowulf was thrown through them, rolling and splattering Grimm essence across the ground as it skidded to a halt in front of JNPR and began to dissipate. Before they even had time to react, _something_ launched itself out into the clearing, a Beowolf in either arm. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a Grimm. Its skin was green and white, and covered in wounds that bled a sickly green color. A series of cables connected it to a wide array of metal plates and joints covering its head and arms, ending in two large bracers with what looked like _meat tenderizers_ on the end of them. Upon landing, it smashed the two Beowolves into each other hard enough to quite literally splatter them across the clearing, leaving puddles of Grimm to slowly smoke and disappear as it turned its attention to JNPR. In particular, Jaune.

“Oh.”  
  
 _‘Now I know why those guys wanted me to run.’_

* * *

_Earth_

_Vahlen’s Lab in the Sonora Desert_

A high-caliber shot flew past Adam’s head, drawing him out of his combat focus for the briefest of moments as the neonate Viper in front of him, for lack of a better word, _exploded_. Sophie was getting ballsier and ballsier with these shots, lately.

“Fucking _danger close_ mean anything to you, Private!?” he shouted, cycling the bolt on his own sniper rifle and shooting a Viper attempting to line up a bead on Roderick, who was busy hacking another one down with his blade. 

“I hit it, didn’t I?” she asked, smug even in the middle of a firefight. “I would like a ‘Thank you, Mad Minute, you’re the best shot in the whole-’”  
  
“Cut the chatter and SHOOT!” Bradford interrupted between shotgun blasts. “MacAuley! Grenade, now!” 

“Right on it!” Murphy replied, pulling his grenade launcher off his back and firing a shot downrange, the explosion sending rocks around the cave crumbling down, and pieces of hatchling Viper sailing through the air. Thankfully, those pieces seemed to be the end of it, for now.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Jerry groaned from behind them, reloading his SMG. “What in the hell was this ‘Vahlen’ chick _thinking_? Why would you mess with the aliens? Why? What purpose does this serve?”

“Dr. Vahlen always did put science in front of everything else… for better or for worse,” Adam stated, knowing better than anyone else in that cave just how far ahead of any sort of good Vahlen put scientific discovery. Unfortunately, it seemed that finding her was becoming a less and less likely prospect with every passing minute. Though, if he’d been taking that revelation hard, Bradford was taking it _far_ harder. He barely did anything more than bark orders, hyperfocused on getting through the mission and finding Moira, as if she gave a fuck about him and would appreciate the rescue. Adam found no reason to believe the woman had any love for any of them, the way she went no-contact. Even Raymond had gotten back in touch after a while. 

“How we doin’, lads and lasses?” Adam asked, looking around the cave at his team. He didn’t see anything amiss, but sometimes adrenaline masked wounds far better than any bandage or painkiller could. 

“All good here,” Roderick replied. “Got some snake blood in my mouth. _Eugh_.”

“Just peachy!” Sophie followed.

“Think we’re all green,” Jerry finished, looking to Murphy for confirmation. The Aussie simply trudged forward, reloading his LMG and walking up to Bradford, who was checking his PDA and examining the cave. “Hey, uh, is it just me, or is it _really_ cold in here. Like, _unreasonably_ cold.”

Now that he was thinking about it, Adam couldn’t help but note the chill. Most caves were usually a bit cooler than the outside weather, but to go from the 40 celsius Arizona heat to shivering was a hell of a transition.

“Not just you,” Bradford replied. “Tygan’s reporting some sort of disturbance further into the caves. Whatever it is, the temperature down there is spiking down to below freezing. That’s also where Vahlen’s signal is coming from.”

“And I didn’t pack my sweater,” Roderick noted sardonically. “Say, John, how about we get a little close together, for warmth. Have a big ol’ group hug-”

“Can it.” 

Roderick rolled his eyes and swept the flat of his blade across his elbow, flicking Viper blood across his sleeve, before sheathing the sword and readying his rifle once more. “How much further down this cave’s the signal?”

“Not far,” Bradford replied, pointing down the cave. “See those over there, the broken panels? That’s where it’s coming from. I want you and Adam on point. Jerry and I will be on your six. Sophie, Murphy, you’ll provide overwatch from the panels.”

  
“Rog,” Murphy replied. “Got that freezer bomb if you need it.”

“Keep it handy,” Bradford said, before motioning to Adam. “Captain.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he replied, jogging past the group and motioning for Roderick to follow him. “Hustle it up, Roddy.”

“The great and mighty Invincible has spoken,” Roderick grumbled, but followed nonetheless. “Say,” he asked, “how come this doctor only just tried to contact you? You guys were pretty much running the military arm of the Resistance here in the US almost ten years ago, no way she wouldn’t have heard the news.” 

“I dunno, Rod, she’s a mystery to most of us,” Adam replied, and that was the truth of it. The woman was never exactly forthcoming about… anything. She was always cold, distant outside of her work, only ever really showing concern when someone died, and even then, it was the more practical sort of concern. Not ‘how could this happen’, but ‘how did this happen, and how could I have prevented it using increasingly unethical scientific methods’. He was just glad that the gene mods had gone through instead of the MEC testing for the Phase One deployment. He couldn’t imagine how the poor sod who had to get all of his limbs chopped off would have felt right about now. 

“Yeah, but you and Bradford know her a lot better than ‘most of us’,” Roderick replied. “I just think it’s weird that your top engineer and his daughter would come back, but your top labcoat wouldn’t.”

“I think it’s odd, too, that’s why we’re here,” Adam stated, “to find out why. Now keep your head on a swivel, tell me what you see.” 

“Right, right.” Roderick shivered slightly as the duo approached the paneling, rubbing his exposed right forearm as he looked around the makeshift enclosure on the other side. “Shit, what was this? A containment cell?”

Adam looked around for himself, noting the rather large assortment of human bones and ice littering the ground. Whatever Vahlen was trying to contain in there made a real mess when it got out. If it got out. “Aye, looks about like it. Let’s get down there.” 

“Woah, woah, woahwoahwoahwoah _woaaaaaaaaah_ , Cap, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Roderick said. “What are you thinking we’re gonna find down there? Not to mention that it’s a pretty big drop. Getting back up’s gonna suck.”

“We’ll find a way,” Adam replied, walking towards the edge of the panelling while motioning for Roderick to follow. “Don’t be a pussy about it, come on.” 

With that, he jumped, immediately noting that it was, indeed, a rather high drop. With his gene mods, he barely felt the impact, but it was enough that Roderick had to roll a bit on the slick, icy stone to avoid some damage, letting out a yelp as he slid across the ice and bumped head first into a large rock structure. “Ow, fuck!”

Adam carefully walked over and grabbed the man by his bone-cold arm, pulling him to his feet and giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Not so bad, now, was it?”

“Worse,” Roderick replied, narrowing his eyes at Adam from behind his mask, before turning back towards the panels. “It’s clear, come on!” 

With that, Jerry and Bradford jumped down, the former also doing a little slide across the ice and landing uncomfortably close to a skull-and-spike totem not too dissimilar from the ones that littered the prior parts of the cave. Adam was quick to slide over and grab him, pulling him back from an unfortunate accident, drawing a sigh of relief from the medic. 

“Thanks, boss,” he said, adjusting the straps on his helmet and readying his SMG again. “See something interesting?” 

“Just ice, ice, and more ice,” Adam replied. 

“On overwatch, Central,” Murphy called from above. “Move in.” 

“Affirmative.” With that, Bradford motioned for Adam to follow him, stepping out from behind the rocks. Adam did as ordered, lowering himself down to glide across the ice as he placed his rifle on his back and drew his pistol, mainly in the interest of having his hand to balance him. Luckily, there were a few bare patches of stone here and there that were safe to walk on, and plenty of jagged, rough ice that wasn’t nearly as hard to walk on the closer they got to the center of the enclosure. 

As they approached, Bradford raised his hand and closed his fist. “Hold on. Got something here.” 

Adam tried to look and see what that something might be, when he saw it. A corpse in a lab uniform, holding a PDA. 

“Ah, shite…” he muttered. “That Vahlen?”

“I don’t know,” Bradford replied. “Sending a scan to Tygan now. We-”

A low, rumbling _hiss_ echoed through the cavern, drawing Adam and Bradford’s attention to the large pillar of ice in the center of the enclosure. 

“-we’re gonna have a problem,” Bradford finished, putting the PDA in one of the pouches on his uniform and readying his battle rifle. Adam checked the chamber of his pistol and took aim, praying to God that this wasn’t going to be what he thought it was.

As ‘Subject Gamma’, the fuck-off big, ornately-horned Viper that had appeared on a hologram in front of the lab turned the corner, hissing and rattling as its beady black eyes locked onto Bradford, Adam made a note to have a conversation with the Big Man Upstairs about unanswered prayers. 

* * *

_Back in Forever Fall_

Jaune wasn’t having a good time. As a matter of fact, for all that he had complained about boredom, he was sincerely wishing right now that he could have that boredom back, instead of…

This.

 _This_ being the giant monster thing that was currently slapping his team around all Brothers’ creation and shrugging off Magnhild grenades and Dust rounds like it was nothing. Even though it was obviously wounded, bleeding, it seemed to just get angrier with every blow JNPR struck against it, roaring and rampaging as it threw itself headlong at them one after the other.

“How are we supposed to stop this thing?” Nora asked. “It’s barely even slowing down!” 

“Just keep hitting it!” Jaune replied, moving to do as he suggested, burying Crocea Mors deep into the creature’s flesh near the neck, drawing another roar of pain as it smacked him across the clearing, his feet barely finding the ground before he righted himself and readied his weapons for another charge. In the meantime, his team struck, Ren delivering a series of Aura-enhanced palm strikes that buckled the creature and sent it stumbling backwards, seemingly on the defensive until, suddenly, it lashed out, hitting Ren with a mighty backhand that sent him flying into the air… where it leapt after him.

“I’ve got him!” Pyrrha shouted, jumping onto Akoúo̱ and using her Semblance to launch herself after Ren and his assailant, hurling her javelin with one arm while pulling at the creature’s back plates with the other, intercepting the now-rapidly falling monstrosity with a one-two punch of a javelin through the torso and a rounding side kick to the face, before pulling her shield back up from the ground to to smash into the creature’s back as well. The thing was barely even able to defend itself from the constant barrage, and seemed to be focused on controlling its descent. A perfect opportunity for an attack.

“Nora, Ren, now!” 

Ren, having righted himself as Pyrrha made the save, understood immediately, using an Aura burst to propel himself down towards the creature feet-first, while Nora quickly followed suit with a bounding leap and a downward slam with Magnhild, both of which landed simultaneously and spiked the already-wounded creature into the ground. 

“Now, Pyrrha!” Jaune ordered, tightening his grip on the straps of his shield and readying himself for something that, in his head, looked pretty awesome. 

“Leave it to me!” 

Seeing as his partner seemed to be on the same page, Jaune set his plan into motion, jumping up to deliver a spiking blow with Crocea Mors’ shielth… only to get uppercutted so hard that he came to with blurred vision and a rapidly-fading Aura on the ground a solid few yards away. 

“Jaune!” Ren shouted, blurry and distorted over the ringing in his ears. “It’s retreating!”

Well, that was good news at least. Then again… they couldn’t just leave that thing running around Forever Fall. If it found its way out of the woods and got into Vale proper, there was going to be blood. 

“Where did it go?” Jaune asked as he pulled himself to his feet and tried to clear his head.

“To the east. Pyrrha and Nora are in pursuit.”

“Right, right. Let’s go!” 

With that, Ren took off, and Jaune was right behind him, leaving the grisly scene in the clearing behind as they chased after the sounds of gunfire and agonized, bellowing roars. By the time they’d caught up with the creature, Pyrrha and Nora had gained its undivided attention, for better or for worse. The two were rapidly switching sides, diving and weaving in and out of range of the creature’s swings to hit it with short hammer blows and precise javelin stabs, sending it slowly stumbling backwards in an attempt to make some distance. 

Nora went for a wider swing, giving the creature the opening it needed to retaliate, slamming its open hand down onto Nora and creating a crater in the ground around her as her Aura and Magnhild absorbed the worst of the blow. Pyrrha, seeing an opportunity to attack, used her Semblance to lift the creature’s hand and allowing Nora to attempt another swing. Pyrrha quickly caught the creature’s other hand in her magnetic grip, stopping it mid-swing from crashing straight into her and leaving the creature straining against her strength. 

“Let’s go!” Jaune said, charging in with blade raised, intent on ending the fight here and now. 

Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong in that moment, did.

The creature roared again, somehow louder than every other roar it had emitted thus far, some sort of green fluid running through the cables on its back as its arm somehow _powered through Pyrrha’s Semblance_ and its massive fist closed around Pyrrha, drawing a pained yelp from the champion as she was used as a bludgeon to knock her own teammate off to the side. 

A large, purple tear in the air opened just as Jaune was about to be within sword’s reach, and the creature jumped through, Pyrrha still in tow.

“Pyrrha!” Jaune shouted. _‘Not good. Not good. This isn’t a Grimm, it just jumped through a hole in the sky, it’s got my teammate, not good, not good. No! Don’t panic, don’t panic, that’s your TEAMMATE, she needs-’_  
  
“ **GET BACK HERE!** ” Nora _shrieked_ , breaking Jaune’s panic as she surged past him, jumping through the tear with Magnhild already poised to strike, simultaneously taking the choice in whether to go through or not pretty much out of Jaune’s hands. Steeling himself and tightening his grip on Crocea Mors, he followed suit, leaping into whatever lay on the other side of that tear.

* * *

The gunfight had ended, a very, _very_ dead Subject Gamma currently splayed out in a pool of orange blood across the ice, and an exhausted Menace Team licking their wounds. They were done here, Adam reckoned, but it was hardly a successful operation.

“So it wasn’t our woman?” Roderick asked, brushing some sweat off his brow with his forearm before wiping off his blade and sheathing it once more. “Damn.”

“Just our luck,” Murphy muttered, slinging his grenade launcher back over his shoulder. “Least we’re all alive.”

“Not through lack of bloody effort, fuck me,” Sophie whined, fussing over her injured arm. The Viper had one of those ‘bolt casters’ they’d found on the old Skyranger crash, and a shot had nicked her pretty nasty, left quite a bit of bleeding. Jerry said it was just a flesh wound, though, which put everyone a bit more at ease. “We headed home?”

“We’ll start making our way back topside shortly,” Bradford replied. “I want a thorough sweep of this cave before we go. There might be useful data Vahlen left behind, maybe some old equipment. Worth a look.” 

“Agreed.” Adam gave his pistols a quick twirl before holstering one of them. “Alright, team-”  
  
Just before he could holster the other handgun, his skin began to _crawl_ . Vahlen had installed a bioelectric neural graft from some of the aliens’ Seekers back in the day, with the stated goal of giving him a ‘sixth sense’, an ability to sense oncoming danger regardless of the combat situation.  
  
Something was happening behind them.

“Six o’clock!” he shouted, making a quick about-face and re-drawing his pistols just in time to see some sort of psionic tear open in the air. 

“Oh, _fuck_!” Sophie exclaimed. “What the fuck is that!?” 

“I don’t know, but it’s not friendly,” Adam replied. “Whatever comes out of there, light it up!” 

“Don’t have to tell me twice, Captain,” Roderick agreed, pulling his shotgun off his back and working the action. “Going home, my **ass**!” 

It seemed that the Good Lord wasn’t very fond of XCOM today, considering that what came out of the portal was the modified Berserker that Vahlen had been fucking about with- Subject Beta. The monstrous alien, surprisingly, was already bleeding profusely, pieces of its metal armor and armament chipped, worn down, or torn off to reveal its scarred visage. In one of its massive fists was a strange-looking human girl- at least, Adam was pretty sure it was a girl, it was hard to tell when she was wrapped up in one of those big mitts. Said girl was quickly spiked head-first into the cave floor. Much to Adam’s shock, she barely reacted, save for a red flash across her skin, instead rolling to her side and putting up a hoplite-type shield to try and defend herself from a follow-up stomp from Subject Beta.

Adam opened up with both barrels, drawing Subject Beta’s gaze towards him and causing its foot to come down just inches from its intended target’s skull. 

“Aw, come on!” Jerry protested, “are you kidding me!?” 

“Shoot!” Adam demanded, and the squad complied, opening up with every gun they had, bullets shredding Beta’s skin like it was tissue paper, but seemingly hardly slowing it down as it lunged towards Adam, his augments allowing him to roll to safety just as its pile-driver fists smashed the ice and stone where he’d been standing. Before he could take advantage of the Berserker’s vulnerability, the portal hummed again—something had come out the other end.

Adam turned his head for the briefest of moments to see a strangely-dressed girl with a hammer almost as tall as she was flying out of the portal, quickly followed by a boy in jeans, a hoodie, and makeshift body armor bearing a sword and shield, and another boy in what appeared to be some sort of oriental robes. While the former and latter seemed focused on taking out Beta, Jeans seemed to be confused as to what he’d just stepped into. It didn’t last long, mind—he was joining his companions within minutes.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Roderick asked. “What are we even looking at?”

“I don’t care! Focus on Beta!” Adam ordered. “We’ll sort this out when she’s good and well dead!” 

Before XCOM could execute that plan, however, it seemed that the four new arrivals were just about ready to handle it themselves. The girl behind Adam threw her shield like a discus, brushing inches away from Adam’s head before the shield ricocheted off of Beta’s back, taking out one of the cables connecting her to her armor. Seeing this, the one in the robes threw some sort of palm strike charged with a bright green energy, sending the plate flying over to the other side of the cave. Jeans took advantage quickly, stabbing his sword into the exposed flesh and drawing an anguished roar from Beta as it wheeled around and sent Jeans and Shield Girl crashing into the ice. Then, the Berserker backhanded the boy in the robes half-way across the cave, before grabbing Hammer Girl mid-swing and slamming her straight into the rock pillar Adam and Roderick had dropped behind, before turning her attention to Jeans and Shield Girl.

Adam took careful aim with his pistols as Beta prepared to charge her fallen targets, already coming up with a plan. “Roddy!”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Get in there!”  
  
“Are you _fucking_ serious!?”

“You bet your lily-white arse I’m serious, boy, now MOVE!” 

Roderick, despite his doubts, complied, and Adam continued giving out orders. “Jerry, get those two out of the way! Sophie, look for an opening and take the shot when you get it. Bradford, with me!”  
  
“You got it, Jones,” Bradford replied, reloading his battle rifle and taking aim. Roderick had reached his target by the time they were ready to fire, jumping between Beta and her targets and delivering a flying slash to its mouth that sent a stream of blood spattering across his face and upper body and sent Beta crashing to the ground, yowling in pain. The boy’s sword was still in her back, which gave Adam an idea. 

“Murphy, Bradford, cover me!” 

Bradford opened up with his rifle, and Murphy with his MG, drawing Beta’s gaze to the three of them and away from Roderick, who’d put himself between Beta and the two kids, giving them a look-over and no doubt attempting to play hearts and minds in the middle of a _gunfight_. Jerry was close behind, Gremlin whirring and going as it examined the both of them. 

Adam could feel his enhanced musculature starting to burn and strain in anticipation as he started to run towards Beta, emptying both of his pistol magazines into the Berserker’s chest as he charged and it rose to its feet. 

_‘That’s it,’_ Adam thought, a smile crossing his face as his plan began to fall into place. _‘Look at me. Look at_ **_me_ ** _.’_

“Soph!” he shouted, just as Beta reared up to bring both of its hands down on him, leaving just enough space between its legs for Adam to slide through, get up to his feet on the other side, holster his pistols, and jump onto her back as she smashed into the icy ground, grabbing Jeans’ sword and stabbing it down into the center of Beta’s upper back, drawing a scream from the Berserker and causing it to rear back… 

Just as a .50 cal round from Sophie’s rifle pierced its neck, reducing its primal scream to a loud, wet gurgling. Adam grabbed the sword from its back and pulled it free, before jamming it back down to the hilt again, and again, and again, the veins in his exposed forearms glowing a dull orange that brightened with every stab until finally, Beta collapsed, falling face-first to the ice and stone below. 

“Damn, I’m good,” Sophie said, bridging her rifle over her shoulders and blowing Adam a kiss. “ _Now_ do you appreciate me, boss?”

“I don’t appreciate your mouth, that’s for sure,” Murphy replied, shifting the aim on his MG towards Roderick and Jerry, who were still tending to the new arrivals. “Move.”

“Hold, Murphy, hold,” Adam said, flicking the blood off Jeans’ sword as he turned to Jeans and Shield Girl. “Save your ammo.”

“You did say ‘light up anything that comes through that portal’,” Murphy stated, a rare attempt at _sarcasm_ from the normally taciturn Aussie. Adam would need to note the day and time. 

“They seem human to me,” Bradford said. “Let’s play this cool.”

“Right,” Adam agreed, pointing to Shield Girl first. Ever since he got a good look at her, he had a question to ask. She was tall, with light armor on her legs, forearms, and chest, blood red hair, and piercing green eyes. Her strange attire—her chestplate appeared to be a _corset_ — and even stranger choice in weaponry, a sword and shield of all things, led to a lot of questions, but it was the former that drew the most important question of all.

“You there, redhead,” he started.

“Yes?” she responded, rubbing the side of her head with a wince.

“Pray tell, why are you dressed like an armored stripper?”  
  
The cave, once alive with the dim echoes of gunfire and cracking ice, was now dead silent for an uncomfortably long period of time, which irked Adam considering he’d asked a serious and pertinent question. This woman was about as dressed for combat as Adam was when he got out of bed in the morning. Hell, she had a _cleavage window_ in her chestplate large enough to make a clear shot thr-  
  
The silence, and Adam’s internal justification, were interrupted by a ear-splitting “ **What!?** ”  
  
This was going to be a very, _very_ long afternoon.


	2. Strange Places, Strange Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JNPR gets acquainted with the eclectic eccentrics that make up XCOM.

To say that Lie Ren and his teammates had ended up in a strange predicament was perhaps the understatement of the year.  
  
Until about an hour ago, he had been enjoying the peaceful serenity of the woods of Forever Fall, the eternal autumnal red clearing his mind and soothing his nerves after a long day of studying and corralling his more energetic autumnal-haired partner. Then, he and his team managed to somehow stumble onto a pile of corpses, a giant, Grimm-killing monstrosity, and now, a group of people who just killed that Grimm-killing monstrosity without seemingly any Aura or Semblance, save for the one who had borrowed Jaune’s sword. 

The man’s eyes were a dull orange-blue with visible blood vessels, and his uncovered right forearm glowed the same ugly tint as his eyes, although it was beginning to fade with combat past, still a stark contrast to the ashy gray of his skin and the pale, graying blonde of his hair.  
  
Said man had seemingly commanded the action that saved team JNPR from possible disaster… only to make a rather questionable observation about Pyrrha’s combat dress.  
  
“Pray tell, why are you dressed like an armored stripper?” the man asked, giving Pyrrha a rather intense-once over. If Ren hadn’t known any better, he’d have assumed bad intentions, but he seemed to be rather friendly compared to the one that was currently _aiming a machine gun at them._  
  
 **“What!?”** Nora shouted, as if Adam had cursed all of the Brother’s creation at once and spit on her for good measure. Already her grip was back on her hammer, but Adam didn’t back down. “Why, I oughta-”

“No, wait, he has a point-” one of the men started. Ren hadn’t caught any information about any of them other than vague names. The man who spoke, clad in all-black armor that covered every inch of skin, and a mask that left everything below the eyes equally concealed, had responded to ‘Roddy’ from Ren’s recollection. His expression was completely masked by his helmet and mask, but his voice made it clear that he didn’t actually agree with Adam one way or another. He was simply instigating, trying to get a reaction.

“Hey, that’s my teammate!” Jaune protested.  
  
“It’s a legitimate question, you’re in a combat theater, armed, and _barely_ armored but you can’t cover up your bloody vitals!” the man with the orange veins protested, motioning to Pyrrha again. “You’re dressed like a _wh-_ ”  
  
“It wasn’t my choice,” Pyrrha said, exasperation in every syllable. Ren had heard the story from her once that her choice of combat attire was more of her agent’s marketing decision than her own, and that she would have preferred something a bit more conservative. “Can we move on, _please_?” 

The man with the orange veins seemed to ruminate on pressing the matter further, but upon seeing both Nora and Jaune simultaneously ready to defend Pyrrha’s honor, he gave up. “You know what? Fuck it. Who are you, and what are you doing jumping out of an alien portal in the middle of the fucking desert?”  
  
“Be quick about it,” ‘Murph’, a brutish bear of a man with a sleeveless suit of tan drab armor, a long, wild ginger undercut, an equally wild beard, and the aforementioned machine gun spoke up, cocking his weapon and aiming it at Nora, who had managed to pull herself out of the wall she’d been slammed into under her own power, much to the shock of the rest of the strange soldiers around JNPR. “Still got plenty of rounds.”  
  
“I would suggest we not shoot each other,” Ren stated, drawing the attention of the soldiers and a wince as he attempted to pull himself up to full height, his Aura doing what it could to repair the injuries he’d sustained in the nasty landing he’d taken after that last hit. “That creature left a trail of bodies and Grimm in the middle of Forever Fall. We attempted to pursue it, and ended up here.”  
  
“‘Forever Fall’?” another soldier, this one the only female in the group, asked, training an incredulous look on Ren from behind her glasses. She’d been awfully confident after landing the killshot on the creature, and seemed to maintain that aura of confidence as she stared Ren down, not even bothering to train her weapon on him. “Fuck are you on about, ayy-boy?”  
  
“Hey, hey, hey, wait just a second!” The soldier next to the woman was so nervous that Ren’s Semblance could detect it even at this distance. The poor guy was hardly prepared for the situation he’d found himself in, his eyes frantically darting between all parties involved as he attempted to defuse the situation. He could hardly be older than Ren. “Come on, guys, we’re all on the same team here.”  
  
“We can’t necessarily be sure of that,” the last of the soldiers, a grizzled-looking old man with a large, heavily-modified rifle replied, lowering his gun in spite of the rather chilly reception he was giving JNPR. He seemed to at least be willing to give them the chance to explain themselves. “Let’s start this over from the beginning. I’m Central Officer John Bradford, XCOM. This is Menace Team. We were sent here to pursue a missing member of our science staff, and ended up running into mutated alien test subjects.” The man then looked around to the rest of the soldiers, jerking his head towards Ren in a silent command, one that the orange-veined man immediately complied with.  
  
“I’m Captain Adam Jones. I’m the leader of this element,” he stated. “Sorry for the messy introduction.”  
  
“Jerry Hall,” the nervous soldier replied, looking to Jaune and Pyrrha with a grin. “Err, Private Jeremiah Hall, I mean. Hi.”  
  
“You can call me Roderick Braddock,” the masked man said, sheathing his sword in a melodramatic fashion. “Kind of a big deal in these parts.”  
  
“Oh, shut the hell up, would you?” the woman asked, before rolling her eyes in Ren’s direction. “Soph Thomas. They call me ‘Mad Minute’, and if you lot don’t get to convincing me you’re not a bunch of ayys soon, you’re gonna find out why.”  
  
“They call her ‘Mad Minute’ because she shoots fast and hits nothin’,” the man with the machine gun stated, matter-of-fact, “but her point stands. You have a _lot_ of explaining to do. As far as you’re concerned, I’m ‘Murphy.’ Your turn.”  
  
By now, JNPR had seen each other and confirmed that, yes, they were all still alive, and yes, they were all in good enough shape to deal with this new development. Said new development involved being held at gunpoint in the middle of an entirely unfamiliar cave, with two dead monsters that weren’t even close to anything ever beheld on Remnant. To say that Ren could feel his teammates’ nerves fraying was an understatement. If that portal was still open, they’d be back through it by now. That wasn’t an option, unfortunately. They’d have to play along.  
  
“I am Lie Ren,” Ren stated calmly, hoping to diffuse the tension.  
  
“And I’m Nora,” Nora followed. “Nora Valkyrie, but you can call me Nora if you’d be nice and _put the frickin guns away!_ Oh, and apologize to Pyrrha!”  
  
“I’m not bloody apologizing!” Adam protested, obviously very fixated on this issue. “You’re all dressed like you’re going fucking trick-or-treating, I’m not going to ignore that shite when you just walked into a combat zone.”  
  
“Fuck me dead, can we get this over with so I can start shooting?” Murphy muttered.  
  
“We’re not shooting anyone, Murphy, for Christ’s sake!” Adam barked, pointing at Pyrrha. “You, Pyrrha, right?”  
  
“Pyrrha Nikos,” Pyrrha repeated. “And I-”  
  
“And you?” he interrupted, pointing at Jaune and leaving Pyrrha further incensed.  
  
“J-Jaune Arc,” Jaune stammered, pointing rapidly to his team. “Uh, we’re Team JNPR. We’re Huntsmen- Huntsmen in _training_ at Beacon. You know, Beacon Academy. The big one.”  
  
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Roderick spoke up. “Nikos? Johnny, you think that’s a coincidence?”  
  
“Let’s worry about this when we maybe _don’t_ have somewhere to be?” Bradford replied. “I don’t know what they’re on about, but Firebrand’s here for extract, and we’re supposed to be on our way out by now.”  
  
“Are you saying we should trust these lil’ boffins, then?” Sophie asked, incredulous. “Because there’s no fuckin’ way I’m turning my back on them.”  
  
“You let us worry about that and keep your eyes front, sunshine,” Adam replied tersely, before motioning to each member of JNPR in turn. “You four, listen. We’ll have plenty of time to talk and explain what the bloody hell is going on, what and where Beacon Academy is, and how the hell you ended up here, but until we get home, you four better be on your best behavior, see me? If I see anything even _slightly_ suspicious, we’re going to have a _big_ problem.”  
  
“We just helped you kill whatever the heck that thing was!” Nora protested.  
  
“Sheila, I don’t care if you came down with divine-goddamn-revelation, you just walked out of a psionic portal,” Murphy explained, training his gun on her. “Now, what else does that, I wonder? Oh, yeah, the fuckin’ X-Rays that have been killing my people for the past 20 years. You lot look human, so I’m giving you enough benefit of the doubt as it is. Got too many goddamn Faceless running around to play nice with all the Girl Scouts. Be very, _very_ good, or I’m gonna shoot you dead.”  
  
“What’s with all the hostility here, man, these vibes are rancid,” Roderick muttered, barely-audible over the argument as he turned to give Jaune a knowing side-eye. “Get a load of this shit-” 

“Shut up and get moving,” Bradford ordered firmly, motioning towards a ledge at the back end of the icy arena they’d found themselves in. “Team JNPR, you get in the center. Thomas, Braddock, and I will take point. Adam, you, Hall, and Murph bring up the rear.”  
  
“Got it,” Adam agreed, before turning to Jaune with a shrill whistle and tossing Crocea Mors back to him, leaving Team JNPR’s ‘fearless’ leader to fumble with it for a brief moment before grabbing a firm hold and sheathing it again. Adam was visibly annoyed by the display, but he made no comment on it, instead motioning for JNPR to follow the rest of the group.  
  
Ren wasn’t sure what his team had gotten into. All he knew is that it was bad.  
  


* * *

  
The Skyranger ride was tense, _very_ tense. Far tenser than usual. Adam was no stranger to long, silent Skyranger trips, but while this one was mercifully short, the oppressive silence made it feel far longer than it was. 

The whole thing had the air of a Mexican standoff, except everyone was sitting down. Pyrrha would occasionally shoot an irritated glance at him, which he’d return with a flat stare and would cause her to back down, no doubt still embarrassed over that… _poorly worded_ inquiry on his part. Roderick, for once, had nothing to say, simply watching Ren, who in turn, watched him. Nora glared daggers at Murphy, who glared right back, and Jerry and Jaune just…sat. It appeared both of them wanted to say something to one another, but the mood aboard the Skyranger made it so that any attempt at breaking the silence, in their mind, would only make it worse. 

It was the longest 20 minutes Adam had ever experienced outside of a firefight, and he was glad to be out of it when the Skyranger landed. Firebrand was completely and utterly unconcerned with the new arrivals, giving them the same vulgar goodbye she gave everyone who boarded her aircraft, and who should be waiting for them when they disembarked but the Commander herself, flanked by Tygan and Shen, her expression unreadable as she examined Menace Team and their new hangers-on. 

“Ma’am,” Adam greeted her. “These are it.” 

“So they are,” Grace replied, nodding before turning her attention to Team JNPR. “I’m Commander Cheng, I’m in charge of XCOM. You can just call me Grace, if you’d prefer. The Captain tells me you found yourself in the caves where Vahlen had set up her lab, followed one of her test subjects out of a portal, is that correct?”  
  
“That… _sounds_ about right,” Jaune replied. “It’s still really, _really_ confusing. I’m not even sure where we are.”

“Well, let’s get that sorted out right now, then. Adam, John, can you follow us inside?” Grace turned her attention to the rest of the team. “You all did good out there, hit the bar and get some rest. As for you kids, come with me. We’ll talk in private.”  
  
Adam quickly made his way to the front of the group, all but forcing his way past Shen and Tygan to get closer to the Commander and get a piece of her mind on things. He wasn’t the most experienced in dealing with civilians, but this ‘Team JNPR’ were anything but normal civilians. There was something off about them, MULTIPLE things, from their state of dress to the weapons they carried and even just the look of ‘em. 

“So?” he asked. Grace cocked a brow—she almost seemed _amused_ by the current chain of events. 

“Can’t it wait, Adam?” she replied, “the office isn’t that far.”  
  
“I just want to know what the game plan is here, we don’t know what we’re getting into.”  
  
“That’s what we’re about to find out. If you’re that worried, call security.” 

“We don’t know if they may be infiltrators.”  
  
“That’s. What we’re about. To find out.” Grace’s smile faded, and she placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder, grounding him in the moment. She was right, he couldn’t afford to worry himself half to death over what might be. Right now, they were safe. Once they got a ground floor, then he could start spending sleepless nights on this whole mess, but for now he needed to keep it together. “Trust me,” Grace continued, “I know what I’m doing. Like I said, you can call security.”  
  
“Right, right. Got it.” With that, Adam pulled a radio off his belt and made the call. “D.D., Richard, you’re up. Meet us at the Commander’s office.” 

_“Oui,”_ Sergeant Richard replied.

 _“What’s goin’ on?”_ D.D. asked, their tone of voice making it clear that they’d spent another long day in the bar. Adam was glad he called, now. If Sophie got in there when D.D. was drunk, there would be hell to pay.  
  
“Need a security detail, and decided to volunteer you. Get a piece and get up here.”

_“...fine. Gimme five.”_

“You get two.”  
  
 _“Up yours.”_

The rest of the walk to the Commander’s office was silent, save for the hustle and bustle aboard the Avenger, and within a few minutes, they’d arrived. Grace was the first through the door, and had already prepared sitting arrangements for the kids, at the very least. A few chairs sat near the wall near the door, positioned so that anyone in the hall could easily see them through said door.  
  
Adam brought up the rear, shutting the door behind them, but leaving it unlocked for when D.D. and Phil arrived. Just as well, because he could already feel the tension.  
  
“Go ahead and take a seat, kids,” Grace said. “I want to hear the story from you before I do anything. I assume you’re already acquainted with Captain Jones and the Central Officer.”  
  
“ _Well_ acquainted,” Pyrrha replied, shooting Adam a judgemental gaze that he returned in kind. Was it immature to hold on to this? Absolutely, on both ends. Did that mean he was going to stop being annoyed by it? No, he was not. 

Grace motioned to Shen and Tygan, the former of whom seemed about as nervous as Adam did right about now. “Lily Shen and Richard Tygan. Respectively, they’re our chief engineer and head of the science division. As I said, I’m Commander Cheng. What about you four? You mind introducing yourselves?”  
  
Team JNPR seemed to look to each other for guidance on how exactly to approach this, which didn’t exactly set Adam’s mind at ease. They were obviously a unit, but if they were infiltrators, that would make it harder to crack them. He’d learned many times over that, while on the surface sound, the idea that every group had at least one weak link was rather difficult to prosecute when it came time to put the screws on. 

Finally, Jaune spoke up, just before Adam was about to cut the middleman and do the introductions for them. “I’m Jaune Arc. I lead the team. These are my teammates, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren.”  
  
“A pleasure,” Pyrrha said.  
  
“Hello,” Ren added.  
  
Nora didn’t say anything. Judging by the look her teammates gave her, they’d been expecting her to. Adam made a note of it, probably nothing to worry about, but it might come in handy later.  
  
“Alright, with introductions out of the way, I’ll start with the debrief,” Grace continued. “Captain Jones and Central Officer Bradford, I assume the short breakdown you gave me is accurate?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Bradford replied. “We ran into limited Viper contacts inside Vahlen’s outpost in the Sonora Desert, before running into Subject Gamma in the cave network. During our confrontation with Subject Gamma, Subject Beta appeared through a psionic portal, with these kids in tow. It seemed just as hostile to them as it was to us, and landed some serious hits, but according to the kids and my own observations, they’re not so much as bruised.”  
  
Grace’s eyes widened. “You told me one of them took a direct hit from Subject Beta. There’s no injuries?”

“Not a scratch on ‘em, unless they’re lying to us,” Adam stated, looking to JNPR. “Wouldn’t be lying to me already, would you?”  
  
“Our Aura took the worst of it,” Ren replied.  
  
“Run that by me again?” Grace asked, visibly confused. Adam wasn’t sure where they were going with this, himself, but it couldn’t be anywhere _normal_. Just his luck. He had enough to deal with without a bunch of crazy teenagers running around the Avenger. 

“Our Aura,” Pyrrha repeated. “The physical manifestation of our soul. Have you not…”  
  
“We’re definitely not in Vale anymore,” Nora noted, looking around the room. “Do you guys not know what we’re talking about?”  
  
“Not a bloody clue, sunshine,” Adam replied.  
  
“Oh, boy…” Jaune started, his foot tapping nervously against the floor. “Great, great, we’re now _way_ away from home, dealing with some weird creatures we’ve never seen anything like before, and surrounded by people with guns who think we’re crazy.”  
  
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Jaune, I just don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” Grace stated, offering the boy a smile. “We’re not going to shoot you or do anything wild like that.”  
  
“Aren’t we?” came a low, booming voice from the doorway, drawing all the eyes in the room. Philippe Richard, the seven-foot tall French-Algerian goliath, stood at the threshold, eyes drifting between every member of JNPR. Adam wasn’t sure what hole they’d pulled the absolute unit from, but he’d been pulled nonetheless, and he was damn useful. Paranoid as fuck, too, but still. “You sure they can be trusted?”  
  
“No,” Adam stated, matter-of-fact, “but we don’t have a reason to distrust ‘em either. Subject Beta went after them first.”  
  
“Subject Beta was a genetically modified Berserker,” Tygan said, “it’s entirely possible that it would attack anything around it, regardless of affiliation. I’m afraid that proves nothing.” 

“Then why would these kids attack it?”  
  
“Self-preservation, perhaps. I do not believe them to be alien infiltrators, but someone must play the devil’s advocate. I recommend testing and isolation until we can determine their origin.”  
  
“Woah, woah, woah,” Jaune interrupted, “hold on a minute, what do you mean _testing?_ ”  
  
“Blood tests, scans, possibly a bit of sur-” Phil started, only to be interrupted by a very familiar, very _drunk_ voice.  
  
“There, King Shit, you said two- _hic_ -minutes, and you got two ffff _fuckin’_ minutes.”  
  
Once again, everyone’s attention was diverted from the discussion at hand and to D.D. Adam had yet to figure out what ‘D.D.’ stood for, and he’d asked plenty of times, the recruit getting more incensed every time he did it. All he knew about them is that they refused to identify, in any fashion and that, according to Jerry, they were Native American. One thing he learned by observation, though, was that they were sloppy. Their hair was worn up as it usually was, tied and braided into something resembling a high and… well, it certainly wasn’t _tight_ , wrapped with a solid black bandana. One notably new addition to their _unique_ look was an obviously broken nose, fresh blood smeared across their mouth and lips. 

“Who hit you with the ugly stick, Private?” Bradford asked. His tone held no malice- the Central Officer was just about the only person D.D. talked to openly and honestly, he could even get away with bossing her around.  
  
“Soho,” they replied, using their usual nickname for Sophie. They had one for just about everyone—Adam’s wasn’t exactly flattering. “Don’t worry. We won’t be havin’ problems.” D.D. then motioned to JNPR. In particular, she looked at Jaune, giving him a sly grin and licking their lips. The poor boy didn’t seem to know what the fuck to do about that, and frankly, in his position, Adam wouldn’t know what to do either. Pyrrha seemed about ready to say something, but D.D. wasn’t about to have that. The proceedings had been very well interrupted, and D.D. loved having their time on the floor.  
  
“D.D., stand down,” Bradford ordered, before either party could say anything. “You’re on security detail here, act professional. And lay off the drink.”

“You first, old man.”  
  
If Bradford was offended by the shot across the bow, he didn’t make that known. Instead, he turned back to JNPR. “Doctor Tygan has a point. You haven’t exactly given us a reason to distrust you, but tensions are high right now. You mind telling us about the sequence of events that brought you to that cave? Maybe we can get something from that.”  
  
JNPR looked to each other, before eventually settling on the still-nervous Jaune, who looked for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights right about now. At this point, Adam just felt sorry for him.  
  
“Take your time, lad,” Adam offered.  
  
“No, it’s fine,” Jaune replied. “We were out in Forever Fall doing a field assignment for our history classes when we heard gunfire. We followed it, and found a bunch of dead bodies with… weird uniforms, stuff we’d never seen before. There were a couple of guys hiding, but by the time we found them, that ‘Subject Beta’ thing had showed up and attacked my team. We fought it for a while, chased it, then it opened up a portal and ran off with Pyrrha. We followed it and ended up in that cave, and now here we are.”  
  
“Come to think of it, we didn’t see any security detail in Vahlen’s labs,” Adam stated. “Those uniforms, did they have any sort of identifying logos?” He took out his PDA and showed them the hard case, and the XCOM logo on the back of it. “Like this one?”  
  
“I didn’t really see,” Jaune admitted.  
  
“I don’t believe any of us did,” Ren added. “We were focused on the threat.”  
  
“Understandably so,” Tygan said, “Subject Beta was a Berserker, and a genetically modified one at that. I can imagine it took quite a bit of effort to terminate.”  
  
“Where the heck is this ‘Forever Fall’?” Shen asked, folding her arms. “Not that I don’t believe you guys, but this story’s just… weird. You don’t look like you belong anywhere here on Earth, in terms of dress, appearance, or tech. You’re all… I dunno. _Off._ ”  
  
“Earth?” Nora repeated. “Where’s that?”  
  
“Yeah, never heard of it,” Jaune agreed. “I’m from Vale, and the rest of my team’s from Mistral, I think.”  
  
“Yes,” Ren replied, “I’m afraid we’re not familiar.”  
  
The silence that fell over the room was deafening. Adam looked to the Commander, who seemed a bit surprised by the revelation, but not nearly as much as Tygan or Shen, both of whom looked like they’d just been told that Christ had risen.  
  
Then, the silence was broken, and all eyes fell on the source. D.D., who was grinning like an idiot and slowly devolving from barely-suppressed sniggering into peals of drunken, raucous laughter.  
  
“Ho-lee **shit** !” D.D. shouted, leaning on Phil and cackling like a jackal. “Aliens! Soho wasn’t lyin’, you’re fucking **aliens!** ” 

“We are **not** aliens!” Nora protested, pointing at D.D. “ ** _You’re_** aliens!” 

“Oh, here we go,” Phil muttered, rolling his eyes. “Can we conclude this charade so I can return to my duties?”

“Look, we’re all human here, or at least we look like it,” Bradford said, raising his hands in a brave but likely futile attempt at playing peacemaker. “Let’s take a breather here and figure this out. Adam, do we have any open quarters?”  
  
“I think there’s an empty bunkhouse just above the reactor,” Adam replied. “End of the hall, furthest from the stair.”  
  
“Alright, then. JNPR, until we figure out what the hell to do, you’re stuck with us, and we’re stuck with you,” Bradford explained. “We all need to come at this with fresh eyes tomorrow, but until then, we’ll set up a bunkroom for you. We’re going to need your weapons, though. Security measure, it’s nothing personal.”  
  
“And why should we trust you?” Pyrrha asked, jerking her head towards the door. “We haven’t exactly gotten a warm reception. How are we to know you won’t try anything?”  
  
“You’re just gonna have to trust me on that,” the Commander replied, “but if _anyone_ comes to you and starts something, you let me know, and I’ll get it sorted out. Ideally, we’ll have an idea of what to do and an understanding with each other by tomorrow, but we’ve had a long 24 hours here, and I don’t doubt you kids have a lot to think about now. I recommend some shuteye, might do us all some good. I’m gonna have to go with the Central Officer on this, though—we’re gonna need to keep your weapons until we have that understanding.”  
  
“I can keep ‘em in Engineering,” Shen offered. “Nobody goes in there without my say-so anyway. Lock ‘em in there for the night and no one’ll lay a hand on them.”  
  
“Don’t fuck with ‘em, An-Yi,” Adam warned. He was pretty sure she only wanted them in engineering to get a crack at them, especially judging by how she’d been looking at Nora’s hammer like it was a miracle from above, but somehow he doubted she wouldn’t at least give them the look-see.  
  
“I won’t, I won’t. I’m just gonna lock ‘em with the prototypes, you know where,” she replied, offering Adam an insincere smile. “Promise.”  
  
Adam returned the smile with a half-smirk, and shook his head. No reasoning with Lily sometimes. “Right, then.” He then turned to JNPR, and motioned to Lily. “Hand ‘em over, Lily and Tygan’ll bring ‘em to engineering. All things going well they’ll be back in your hands and you’ll be out the door tomorrow. Got my word on that.”  
  
A pause followed, not quite as long as the last, but still uncomfortable. Finally, Ren seemed willing to play peacemaker, unloading his weapons and standing up from his seat, before offering them to Adam. They were handguns, solid green with black handles, and what looked like some sort of axe blade attached to the underside of the barrel. Fancy. One by one the rest of the team complied as well, until Lily and Tygan were pretty much loaded down with weaponry, Lily struggling to hoist Nora’s hammer on her shoulder while Tygan barely managed to keep steady with Jaune and Pyrrha’s swords and boards in his hand. These kids were war ready alright, but war with _what_ remained to be seen.  
  
“Thank you much,” Adam said, motioning to the door. “Let’s get you settled in. We’ve all had a long day, haven’t we?”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_Meanwhile_

_Remnant, Forever Fall_

Yang was no stranger to proverbial ‘bad shit’. 

This was very, _very_ bad shit. 

Today had been a relatively easy day, in theory. History class, little field trip to Forever Fall, stare at fancy carved rocks and old roads and hope that something interesting showed up. Easy A. The problems began when the shooting did, as said shooting had come from the direction of her friends in Team JNPR.  
  
Friends that were currently nowhere to be seen. Friends that apparently had left a trail of dead bodies that most certainly were not Beacon-affiliated. Or _Vale_ -affiliated, for that matter. She’d never seen any of these guys’ outfits or logos in her life, and neither had anyone else, as a cursory browse of the Net had found.  
  
“There’s no way JNPR did this,” Ruby stated, as if it needed to be said. While any Huntsman-in-training could take on a few goons with guns and win, they weren’t trained with the killing of other human beings in mind. Judging by the type of wounds and the state that the bodies were in, this was a whole different kind of trouble. Maybe Grimm, but normally Grimm would have stuck around the area of their kill to feed off the lingering fear and pain of death. 

And that still didn’t explain why JNPR were suddenly out of range of the CCT network. Yang had been trying to call them for a good five minutes now, with no luck.  
  
“Any signs of life?” Yang asked, looking up from her Scroll and around the clearing they’d found themselves in.  
  
“Not that I’ve seen,” Blake replied. “Apparently whoever these people were traveled here from the south, and were intercepted by something that came through the treeline. Something big.”   
  
“Grimm?”  
  
“Maybe, I don’t recognize the footprint.”  
  
Yang sighed, looking to her sister and team leader, who’d left the center of the clearing and started towards some sort of stone outhouse or something of the like at the edge of it. “Hey, Ruby? Did you call this in yet?”  
  
“No!” she replied. “Should we?”  
  
“‘Should we?’ Weiss repeated, “there are thirteen dead bodies in the middle of Forever Fall, and they died _recently_ . I think this _might_ require some investigation! We’re certainly not finding anything ourselves.”  
  
“I still say we should take one last look around before we go,” Blake said, “maybe we’re mis-”  
  
“Hey, I found someone!” Ruby suddenly shouted from within the structure, poking her head out and pointing back in as two more figures leaned out behind her, both wearing similar uniforms to the bodies laying across the clearing—one a tall, lanky man with a helmet and some kind of face covering, the other bareheaded to expose his long blonde hair and thick mustache. “They saw the thing that was here! JNPR went to chase it!”  
  
Yang waved over at the strange men and motioned for them to come over. “Are they hurt?”  
  
“We’re good!” the blonde man shouted. “Can’t say the same for your friends, I don’t think. One of ‘em got smacked halfway across God’s creation by Subject Beta, rest of ‘em went after her.”  
  
“Subject Beta?” Weiss repeated. “What are you on about?”  
  
By now, Ruby and the survivors had made their way back to the center of the clearing, and Yang was able to get a better look at the men. The one with the helmet had taken it off, revealing a close-cropped head of dark brown hair, shaved at the sides. He had a rather nasty-looking wound on the left side of his head, one that looked like it had only received the bare minimum of treatment. He didn’t seem to care much about it.  
  
“Man, and I thought the others were dressed odd,” the mustached man muttered, looking between the members of RWBY. “‘pologies, girls, but you wouldn’t happen to know where the hell we are?”

“You’re in Forever Fall, just outside of the city of Vale,” Blake stated, before motioning to the brown-haired man. “You have a serious head injury, if you haven’t noticed.”  
  
“Do I?” the man asked, rubbing the side of his head near the wound. The mustached man turned to look, obviously not having seen it prior himself. “Shit, Larry, how bad is it?”  
  
“Certainly ain’t good, that’s for sure, and I don’t know where the hell ‘Forever Fall’ is,” ‘Larry’ replied. “Certainly ain’t Arizona.” Turning back to Yang and the rest of Team RWBY, he offered a short salute before motioning to his partner. “This here is Eric, I’m Lawrence. We are… _were_ working with-”  
  
“You think it’s a good idea to be shooting off at the mouth right now, Larry?” Eric interrupted. “We don’t know if you’re in hostile territory.”  
  
“If it helps at all, we can bring you with us back to Beacon,” Ruby offered. “You can get that injury treated there, if you want, and maybe you can talk to Ozpin.” 

  
“Ozpin? Beacon?” Eric repeated. “Man, this is some weird shit.”  
  
“And we’ll have plenty of time to figure it out later,” Lawrence replied, placing a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “For now, we need to get out of here before Beta or the other test subjects come rockin’ up. Ladies, if you would be so kind as to help me and my friend get to this ‘Beacon’ and see to his injuries, we’d be much obliged.”  
  
“Can do!” Ruby replied, turning to Yang now. Even if she was the team leader, for reasons Yang wasn’t sure she understood, she still looked to Yang for advice quite regularly. She wasn’t sure if the advice she gave was _good_ exactly. Yang knew good and well that she wasn’t leadership material even on a good day, she was more the kind that enjoyed having a direction to punch in and things to punch, but she still had a little bit of wisdom she could try and pass on to her younger sibling. In this case, though, Ruby seemed to be on the right track. “Can you get Professor Port and let him know what’s going on out here?”  
  
Yang nodded, already pulling up the number on her Scroll. “Can do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I confused you yet : )


	3. What's Happening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few of XCOM's operatives attempt to play nice, and Pyrrha worries.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Jerry was having a _Time_. With the big ol’ capital T.

Just this morning he’d been pacing the floors worried about the next operation, getting harangued by Corporal Thomas, and then having to sit in on a very, _very_ tense Skyranger trip where she kept staring at him like she wanted to throw him off the darn thing. Then, as if his day couldn’t get any crazier, a Berserker jumps out of a psionic portal and brings four alien kids with it, armed with weird, fancy archaic weapons and dressed like they’d either missed RenFaire or were giving tactical cosplay a try. 

And cherry on top, when Sophie tried to start an argument with him in the hold once they got home, D.D. beat her black and blue. Dang, that dude was scary.  
  
Currently, he was seated in the bar, though Jerry never drank. His momma had been a drinker, and while she wasn’t terrible, she was most certainly miserable, and Jerry hadn’t touched the stuff since he dropped out of college. Just as well, clarity of mind and clarity of purpose meant clarity of action, and he couldn’t afford to make mistakes when people were relying on him.

Not like he didn’t make them anyway. 

“Sure you don’t want a drink, _agapitós_?” Alexios asked, the aging Greek specialist nursing a tallboy, probably one filled with vodka. He’d just gotten back from a covert operation in New York, something about infiltrating a club. Roderick had wanted to be there, but couldn’t, so he’d taken Fyodor Sidorov along. The Ukranian was on the other side of Alexios, no doubt reading yet another political theory book. Both of them were really smart guys, Jerry figured that’s how they got along so well, they were just… different kinds of smart. Alexios was learned, Fyodor was cunning, for lack of a better way to describe it. “Sounds like you need it after today.”

“No thanks, buddy,” Jerry replied, waving dismissively. “I’ll be okay.”

“ _Ty vpevnenyy_ ? You’ve just been kind of sitting there looking at nothing for the past few minutes,” Fyodor said, turning and lowering his book to give Jerry a concerned glance. “How do you say? ‘It’s okay not to be okay?’”  
  
“I’m fine, man. I just need some time to kinda process that there are frickin’ aliens on the ship now.”  
  
“We already have aliens,” Alexios said, his tone darkening. “Can’t believe Bradford chewed me out over not taking that ADVENT _filth_ with me. Infiltrating a club with one of those hybrid freaks? Not only does it not make sense, he’d probably shoot me in the back if it meant he could rejoin his little friends.” 

“To be fair, it wasn’t about the club, it was about capturing the target,” Fyodor stated, shutting his book and placing it into one of the pockets on his jumpsuit. “That grappling hook could have sped up the process quite a bit. Could have just pulled him through the skylight and been done with it, but no… you had to go get a drink first, then beat the guy unconscious in the middle of the dance floor, then drag his ass over your shoulder while all the ADVENT in the fucking city were after us! If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were trying to get us killed on purpose!”  
  
“What’s the fun in doing things the _easy_ way, Iron Man?” Alexios asked through a chuckle. “Besides, we made it out fine. Our VIP has a lovely story to tell at parties.”  
  
“Yes, I’m sure the poor woman will have nightmares for the rest of her days. You bust into the club, shooting holes in the walls and screaming in Greek like a Spartan ape-”  
  
“I’m from Santorini.”  
  
“The point stands,” Fyodor said, before turning back to Jerry. “Do you at least want a soda, friend?”  
  
“You know what?” Jerry replied, “Sure. Orange.”  
  
“Course.” With that, Fyodor stood, going around the bar to the tiny, decrepit mini-fridge that held all the non-alcoholic beverages in the bar, and chucked one over his head to Alexios, who in turn caught it and passed it on to Jerry. He didn’t open it yet, seeing the arduous journey it had taken to reach him, and he’d rather have half his drink run over before he even got a sip. 

Before any conversation could resume, Roderick entered the room, his face ever-obscured by the tacmask he still refused to take off. 

“Mornin’, sexy bitch!” he shouted.

Alexios smiled and offered him a thumbs up. “Not today, Roderick. I’ve had just about enough exercise.”  
  
“Oh, come on, surely you’re not worn out by a little bit of slap and tickle with good ol’ Doctor… what’sherface, I don’t give a fuck.” With that, Roderick plopped down into one of the stools by the bar, and turned to Jerry. “So, Jer-Bear, how are you feeling about our new houseguests?”  
  
Jerry shrugged. Truth be told, he didn’t see why everyone was so paranoid. Faceless weren’t nearly as smart as some of the more superstitious guys gave them credit for, and they _never_ talked. At least, Jerry had never heard them talked. He was in the autopsy room with Tygan, and they found very rudimental vocal chords, but nothing capable of human speech. “They seem nice,” he replied. “I dunno. We didn’t exactly have time to talk beyond ‘you good? How many fingers am I holding up?’ before we started pointing guns around.” 

“You people sure are good at first impressions!” Fyodor said through a low chuckle. “No doubt they feel like they’ve kicked the hornet’s nest. I must remedy this immediately. Come, Jerry, let’s go say hello properly.”  
  
Jerry shot up in his seat, surprised at his superior officer’s forwardness about the whole thing. Fyodor was a nice guy, but this was a little excessive. Plus, from what he’d gathered from the bulletin the Commander put out, they were supposed to leave the kids alone. “Woah, uh, what about-”  
  
“Forget that, it does no harm to be kind. Besides, I’ve had just about enough of the good Sergeant here,” Fyodor replied, motioning to Alexios, who just smiled and shook his head. 

“You know you love me, Fyodor.”  
  
“I don’t know why, you’re quite the pain in the ass.” With that, Fyodor stood back up, and motioned to Jerry. “Let’s go, shall we?” 

Jerry sighed, standing up and grabbing his can of soda as he followed Fyodor out the door, popping open the can and taking a swig. He wasn’t really big on this idea, but Fyodor kind of outranked him, so he felt bad saying no. Besides, he _did_ want to try and play nice with the visitors. The first meeting really wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best either, and the _last_ thing Jerry wanted was to be even tangentially connected to another bunkhouse brawl. 

“So, tell me about them,” Fyodor said, bringing Jerry out of his thoughts. “The new arrivals.”

“Oh, okay. Uh… there’s four of ‘em,” Jerry explained. “By my guess they’re all older teenagers, like, sixteen at the youngest. They’re also a ‘team’ apparently, but a team of what, I dunno. It’s kinda hard to keep up with. There’s Jaune, blonde kid, really tall, probably about your height, then Nora, a little ginger girl who’s _really_ loud and has a big fuckoff hammer. There’s also Pyrrha, who Adam may or may not have called an armored stripper, and Ren, who looks like he came out of a tai chi instructional video and has knife-pistols.”

“Knife-pistols?” Fyodor repeated, incredulous.

“Knife-pistols,” Jerry stated plainly. 

Fyodor paused before giving a slow, knowing nod. “This makes sense.”

“Seriously?”

“Not at all, I’m merely reassuring myself, _lyubyy druzhe_. It’s certainly a lot to take in.” 

“Yeah, definitely,” Jerry agreed. “I still can’t believe it.” 

Fyodor nodded once more, before taking out his PDA and scanning through his files until he found the bulletin. “You know, if we’re supposed to leave them alone and trust them not to do anything, why would we put them right by the reactor? Seems like a bad idea.” 

“I dunno man, but I doubt they’ll do anything. They seem as freaked out by us as we are by them.”

“All the more reason for us to say hello then, yes?” Fyodor put the PDA back in his pocket with a smile, just in time to round the corner to the hall where JNPR would be staying. Aside from some of the science team, the bunkrooms on this wing were unoccupied—Tygan had been using them for storage, mostly, said that the lab being in the reactor room meant that there was almost nowhere to put anything. Hopefully they’d at least picked one of the clean ones for the guests. 

The two approached the door at the end of the hall, and Fyodor gave a quick trio of knocks. “Excuse me, may we come in? We wish to talk for a moment.”

* * *

As Pyrrha saw it, Team JNPR’s current situation was untenable. 

They were nowhere near home, as her Scroll indicated. Team RWBY’s contact signals were far out of range, and any attempt at geolocation merely brought up _another_ error screen to add to the growing cascade on her display. That wasn’t even beginning to address the rest of the problems. Sure, they had killed whatever that _thing_ was in Forever Fall, that so-called ‘Subject Beta’, but there was no telling if there were more of its kind meandering near the city of Vale proper, and judging by the amount of firepower it took to bring that thing down, by the time a team of Huntsmen could be dispatched, there would be a disconcerting number of casualties.  
  
And then, there was the matter of her new company. Pyrrha knew her combat gear wasn’t the most practical, but it had been a choice between the lesser of two evils, according to her sponsors, and she wouldn’t be caught dead in a sarong in a tournament fight, let alone combat against Grimm. Besides, it suited the task at hand perfectly, there was no call for such epithets as ‘armored stripper’. While Pyrrha did her best to remain down-to-earth, she did have _some_ pride, and that was a mighty blow to it. 

The biggest concern was her team. While Jaune had grown by leaps and bounds since they met at initiation, he still wasn’t the leader JNPR would need in a crisis like this—though, to be quite frank, _none of them_ could possibly have prepared for something this outlandish—and considering that their station here currently teetered between thinly-veiled distrust and outright, violent hostility, Pyrrha doubted she would be getting any sleep tonight. 

“So, uh…” Jaune started, his voice unsteady, uncertain. He’d laid out across the couch in the corner of the room, near a large-screen TV that had nothing worth watching on it but news about the goings on in the local area. It was all foreign to Pyrrha, names she’d never heard and places she’d never been. She was far too concerned with the here and now to worry about those details, at least until the team was safe.  
  
“Yeah?” Nora asked, trying her best to remain upbeat. If it were anyone else but her teammates listening, they likely wouldn’t be able to tell anything was bothering her.

“Ah, man, I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” Jaune admitted, pressing his palms into his eyes and carding his fingers through his bangs. “I don’t even know where we are right now. All that talking we did with that Grace lady and I just have more questions than when we ended up in the cave.” 

“This organization is obviously rather concerned about security,” Ren stated. “Considering how well-armed and armored everyone is, the fact that they’ve shared little to no information with us about them or their motivations, all we know is that they don’t like aliens very much. It’s clear they don’t trust anyone, let alone us. I don’t think our questions will be answered unless we’re somehow able to prove that we _can_ be trusted.”

“And how would we go about that, Ren?” Pyrrha asked, placing her Scroll in the small satchel she kept on her belt. “That ‘Tygan’ fellow was talking about doing scans and tests, and I’m not sure I’m willing to volunteer any of us for that.”

“I don’t know,” Ren replied. “That would be Jaune’s decision, not ours.”  
  
“Well, I wouldn’t make the call unless we’re all on board,” Jaune said, sitting up and leaning over the back of the couch, resting his head on his arms. “We’re a team. We came in here together, we’re doing this together, and then we’re gonna leave together.”  
  
Pyrrha smiled as his eyes met hers. Even if he had a lot to learn, he certainly had it down in _some_ places. 

Before any further discussion could be had, there was a quick rap on the door, one-two-three, and an unfamiliar voice on the other side. 

_“Excuse me, may we come in? We wish to talk for a moment,”_ A man on the other side of the door asked in a thick, unidentifiable accent. Pyrrha looked at the door, then back at Jaune, who seemed just as confused as she was. 

“Well?” Nora piped up, sitting up from the bed she’d claimed and reaching out for Magnhild, only to find out it wasn’t there. Pyrrha didn’t envy her. She was so used to carrying Miló and Akoúo̱ around that she felt naked without them, especially in such an uncertain environment as this one. 

“Who is it?” Jaune asked. 

_“A friend,”_ the voice replied. _“Unlike some of my colleagues, I simply wish to establish a dialogue.”_

 _“I’m here too!”_ Jerry added. _“Uh, me. Jerry. Jerry Hall, from the cave. Hi.”_

Jerry— _’what an unusual name’_ — reminded Pyrrha a lot of Jaune in some ways. While his eyes were a dull green, he had Jaune’s flaxen hair and uncertain demeanor, and carried himself awkwardly, as if his armor and weapon belonged to someone else, and he was merely borrowing them to put on an appearance. Still, much like Jaune, he was well-meaning and had a good heart, even if he wore it on his sleeve.. When she and Jaune came back around after being knocked silly by ‘Subject Beta’, Jerry had been giving them a look-over to ensure they weren’t harmed, rambling and ranting about how unfortunate a situation they’d found themselves in all the while. He didn’t seem like trouble.

Jaune seemed to agree.  
  
“Alright, you guys can come in,” Jaune replied, and the door opened. Jerry was the first one in, offering an awkward wave to the still-uneasy Nora, who returned it half-heartedly. The man placed his helmet on a chair next to the door, and leaned up against one of the unclaimed bunk beds in that corner of the room, while the man behind him took his time coming in and examining all of them. He looked quite a bit older than Jerry, but Pyrrha wouldn’t be able to guess his age. He had sharp features, with harsh cheeks and jawbones and piercing blue eyes that sat in dull, weary sockets. His hair, shaven at the sides, was dyed a stark white, and worn slicked back in something resembling professional fashion, and he had a surprisingly easy smile for a man with such a striking appearance. Unlike Jerry, he wasn’t wearing armor, instead settling for a black and white jumpsuit of some sort. 

“From the way the rumor mill is spinning,” he began, “you would think that you had two heads, three arms, and four legs each!” His grin widened, and he spread his arms out as if to encompass all of JNPR. “And yet here you are, _children_ ! _Svyate layno_ !”  
  
“Sorry, guys,” Jerry said, jerking his thumb towards the other man. “This is c-”  
  
“No ranks, Jerry, we are all friends here,” Fyodor assured him, turning to look at Jaune. “You must be Jaune. You are the leader of this little band, no? My name Fedor Andrusyshyn Sidorov, but to my friends, I am merely Fyodor. I lead XCOM’s ‘Hitman Team’, I don’t believe you’ve acquainted with us yet. It is a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances. Would you perhaps be willing to break bread with us? It is a fine evening.”  
  
“Fyodor, I don’t think that’s a good idea-” Jerry protested, but Fyodor was having none of it.

“Nonsense, _brate_ , these children are in the middle of unfamiliar territory with no friends but us! Surely they are hungry?” He specifically looked to Nora as he spoke, which was oddly prescient considering that Nora’s first complaint upon entering their new abode was that she was hungry. Adam had said he’d bring them something, but here Fyodor was offering to bring them to the food instead, as bad an idea as that was. “You there, you look like you haven’t had a solid meal today. When’s the last time you ate?”  
  
“This morning,” Nora replied succinctly.  
  
“Yes, and what time is it now? Four in the afternoon?”  
  
“What time was it when we got here?” Jaune asked, looking to Pyrrha as if she knew the answer. Honestly, she hadn’t checked, but a quick dig through her satchel and a look at her scroll told her it was about lunchtime. Still…  
  
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Pyrrha said, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Ren nodding his agreement. “We wouldn’t want to cause a scene.”  
  
“Trust me, that will not be a problem with my team,” Fyodor replied. “You’ve already met one of them, from my understanding, and they’re the worst of the bunch, so that should tell you we’re alright.” 

Pyrrha found herself looking to her team for a plan, but none of them seemed any closer to one than she was. On the one hand, turning Fyodor down would be quite rude, but on the other… well, it wasn’t exactly the _best_ idea in the world to put themselves out there to this extent. 

“I mean, is it just gonna be you guys?” Jaune asked, incredulous. 

“Just us,” Fyodor replied. 

“Yeah, he’s tellin’ the truth,” Jerry agreed. “Most everyone else is either taking a load off or on assignment already. Besides, we usually eat in our quarters unless everyone’s in the mess.” 

After a short pause for consideration, Jaune seemed to think the idea was worth the risk, and as much as she had her doubts, Pyrrha would always back her partner up.  
  
“Okay, yeah, sounds good,” Jaune agreed. “What’s for lunch?”  
  
Jerry and Fyodor looked at each other, then back at Jaune.  
  
“Burgers,” they both said in unison, in a way that made Pyrrha suddenly feel extremely uneasy. 

“Burgers sound good!” Nora said, and Ren nodded in agreement. Now, all eyes were on Pyrrha. 

“That… sounds _grand_ !” Pyrrha replied, offering a thumbs up and a nervous grin that fooled no one. Her team would likely dismiss it as her being picky about what she ate, but frankly, she was curious as to why they hesitated in answering the question.  
  
“Just a warning, I dunno if you have burgers where you’re from, but these are, uh… different. That’s the best way I can describe ‘em,” Jerry explained. “Well, everyone says they’re different, I’ve never had ‘em any other way so I couldn’t tell you.”  
  
“Come, come, it’s going to get cold before long,” Fyodor said, already halfway out the door and clapping his hands urgently. “Come, come, come, there are some folk I’m sure would be glad to meet you!” 

Jerry left his helmet on the chair and followed his comrade out, motioning for JNPR to follow, and one by one, they did. Nora was first, of course, considering food was involved, and Ren not far behind. Jaune lingered a bit to wait for Pyrrha, ever the caring leader, but she was in no rush to meet any new faces today. She gladly took up the rear. 

As soon as she stepped out of the room and shut the door, there was already a conversation going. Fyodor was on some sort of device that reminded her of a Scroll, but far bulkier, asking ‘D.D.’ to bring the burgers. Meanwhile, Jerry attempted to make small talk with Nora and Jaune about how they liked their burgers done. All in all, it was… _banal_ , compared to earlier, where it seemed for all the world to Pyrrha that she may well have had to draw her weapons in her friends’ defense. 

The trip passed quickly. Another bunkroom stood before them, and Fyodor quickly rapped his fist against the door in the exact same manner he’d done for them. “Housekeeping!”  
  
A long, warbling whine could be heard through the door, along with someone groaning in frustration. 

_“Mooooootherfucker!”_ a familiar voice groaned, one that Pyrrha recognized from the briefing as belonging to that strange fellow (or was it a woman? It was hard to tell) that had been part of the ‘security’ detail for the meeting with Grace. _“I ain’t gettin’_ **_shit_ **.” 

_“Keep yer knickers on ye then, I’ll fuckin’ do it,”_ a man replied, and within a few seconds, the door was open to reveal a shaved-headed man with a pair of slim, sleek glasses. Said man immediately stared at Pyrrha like he’d seen a ghost. 

“Good day, Joseph!” Fyodor greeted him. “We’re having guests, in case you weren’t told.”  
  
“Fer fuck’s sake…” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ye cannae be serious, sir, if Central catches wind-”  
  
“He won’t, and even if he does, it was my idea. Now, come, it’s time to eat.”  
  
With that, Fyodor pushed past ‘Joseph’ and motioned for the rest of the group to follow. The room was far more lived-in than the bunkroom JNPR had been given, with knick-knacks and curios littering the room, from a bookshelf filled to the brim to a rather ornate guitar sitting on a rack on the wall. At the far end of the room, at a large round table, D.D. nursed a bottle of some kind of liquor, clad only in some sort of binder and a baggy pair of pants made of the same material as Fyodor’s jumpsuit. Near her, a young man sat back, one eye covered in bandages and the other trained on the group as a whole, a smirk on his face as he slowly sat up to full height. In the very back of the room, someone sat on the couch, looking over the edge of it with thinly-veiled excitement.  
  
“Oh, fuck, you’re serious,” D.D. stated through barely-stifled giggling. “You actually brought them here, you mad bastard.”  
  
“Oho _hoooooo_ **_man_ ** ...” The man with the bandaged eye began to chuckle lowly, pointing at Fyodor and narrowing his one good eye. “You are in _soooo_ much shit, boss.” 

“Not yet, I’m not,” Fyodor replied. “Anyway, children! This is Hitman Team, or most of us anyway. My second hasn’t returned yet. The one with no shirt and no sense of decency is-”  
  
“We already met,” D.D. stated, training her eyes on Jaune again. Pyrrha couldn’t help but step a bit closer to her leader, an act that D.D. immediately picked up on, and their eyes locked on Pyrrha’s. “I do believe we’re gonna be fast friends. Ain’t that right, Jerry?”  
  
Jerry chuckled nervously in reply. Something told Pyrrha that wasn’t exactly the case, but she wouldn’t be the one to say so out loud. 

“Anyway,” Fyodor continued, as if that had never happened, “The one with the bandages is Spencer, he’s our team’s sniper, but he’s a bit indisposed at the moment. How are you doing today, Spencer?”  
  
Spencer smiled and brushed the hair out from over his bandage, and poked at it. “Eye’s gone, boss, no saving it. When it heals up, I gotta show you. Looks _gnarly_ .”  
  
“You lost your eye?” Jaune asked, concern evident in his tone for a man he’d only just met. Admirable, if a bit bold. 

“I’m a sniper,” Spencer replied. “I don’t win fist-fights too often, let alone knife-fights. I still got my good eye, though. I can shoot plenty fine. Better than that battleaxe you met earlier, anyhow.”  
  
“Excellent, glad to hear it,” Fyodor replied, before motioning back towards the door, and Joseph. “This is Joseph Ferguson, he’s our heavy weapons specialist.”  
  
“Howfur dae ye?” Joseph tipped an invisible hat to Nora, who returned the gesture, her usual enthusiasm starting to return now that the mood was a bit less hostile. 

“And over there is Lais Odeh, he’s our infiltration specialist,” Fyodor finished, pointing to the man on the couch. “He’s also the one who makes the burgers.”  
  
“‘Make’ is a strong word, I prefer the term ‘liberated from enemy territory’,” Lais replied, waving. “Hello there, travelers! You sound like you’ve had _quite_ the adventure to get here.”  
  
“Na kiddin’,” Joseph agreed. “Hae a seat where ye like, na doubt yer starvin’. Hell, I could sloch a horse an’ I’ve nae flown through a portal this eve.”  
  
“Thank you,” Ren said, separating from the group long enough to get a seat at the table with Nora. It looked a bit crowded, but before Pyrrha could make an effort to sit off to the side or on the couch, Fyodor was practically shoving her and Jaune into the table and grabbing a seat for them. The man seemed dead-set on being hospitable, and while a part of it unsettled her, she still appreciated it. 

“Why exactly are you going through all this effort?” she asked. “We didn’t exactly have the best first impression with your group.”  
  
“Nonsense!” Fyodor protested, placing a hand on Pyrrha and Jaune’s shoulders and causing the latter to startle in his seat. “You’ve made no impression on me, and frankly, what anyone thinks here does not matter save for the Commander and her staff. We’re all friends in this room.”  
  
“At least until you look at me funny,” D.D. added. “Then, I’ll kill you dead.”  
  
“Chill,” Spencer warned, offering JNPR a thumbs up. “Long as you guys don’t do any crazy alien shit, you’re cool in my book. So, how exactly did you end up here?”  
  
Jaune went through the story again, starting with the assignment that brought them into Forever Fall in the first place, and going from there, stopping when he got to the part where they met this ‘XCOM’ in the cave. He had everyone’s attention, it seemed, save for D.D., who at one point interrupted the tale just to get up and grab another alcoholic beverage, before loudly busting the cap off with a pocket knife and starting anew. Jaune didn’t take too long to recall, but by the time he was finished, Lais had already handed out the burgers and everyone, save for Pyrrha, had started eating. A cursory glance in her teammate’s direction told her that, unsurprisingly, Nora had already _finished_ .  
  
“And that’s how we got here,” Jaune finished. “It’s kind of a lot to process.”  
  
“Nae kiddin’,” Joseph replied, sounding almost impressed. “Dinnae halfa what ye mean by this ‘Forever Fall’ an ‘Beacon’ business, but tha’ can be told later. I see nae cause for worry.”

Lais, who had up to now been watching Nora devour her burger with great interest, gave Jaune a smile as he leaned over the table. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to get you back home before too terribly long, anyhow. Things have been unusually quiet as of late around here.”  
  
“That would be what we in the know consider a _bad_ thing, Lais,” Spencer said. “You kids may or may not have accidentally stepped in _tohu-bohu_ , though I’d rather let the Commander explain that. It’s a heck of a mess to jump into blind.”  
  
“Yeah, it’s a mess. You came in on us trying to find one of our old science team gals, but no luck,” Jerry explained. “And we’ve got another big op on the docket for tomorrow, though I don’t think it’ll be nearly as _eventful_ as this one was.”  
  
“Here’s tae hopin’ tha’ yer right.” Joseph replied, raising his burger in an impromptu toast.

“You know, it’s really hard to understand what that guy’s saying,” Nora spoke up, pointing to Joseph. “Are you speaking another language or something?”  
  
“Nora-” Ren began to protest, only for Joseph to wave him off with a laugh.  
  
“Is nae trouble a’ all, God’s Tongue is new tae ye it seems. I’m a Scot by blood, spent all me days in Ayr.”  
  
“Man sounds like he has a mouthful of hash whenever he tries to say more than one syllable,” D.D. continued. “Guessin’ y’all couldn’t make any sense out of that, huh?”  
  
“I’m afraid ‘Ayr’ isn’t a place I’ve heard of,” Ren replied. “We’re definitely far from home.”  
  
“Which is why I brought you here,” Fyodor explained through a ginger bite of his burger. Pyrrha wasn’t the only one more worried about the conversation than eating, it seemed. “God knows you’re going to get some shit here, but I wanted you to know that you won’t be getting it from us.”  
  
“I don’t make promises,” D.D. replied with a smug grin in Pyrrha’s direction.  
  
“D.D., come on,” Jerry protested weakly.  
  
“Oh, don’t think I’m done with you, either, sawbones,” they said, mercifully looking away from Pyrrha long enough to harangue the medic. Pyrrha didn’t like the look they’d been giving here. There was something uncomfortable behind it, something buried deep behind those bloodshot eyes that rubbed her the wrong way.  
  
“D.D.’s got a point though,” Jerry agreed, a pause in the conversation following his attention shifting towards the door. Seemingly confident no one would come in, he turned back to JNPR and lowered his voice. “You haven’t met Alexios yet, but he’s Fyodor’s second in command. “He’s, uh… he’s a special guy. I don’t think he’ll like you very much, and I think it’ll be mutual.”  
  
“And Sophie’s gonna needle you until one of you fucks up and gives her a reason to try and start shit,” D.D. said, motioning to her nose. “She ain’t much, but she could probably take String Bean there pretty easy.”  
  
“I can handle myself,” Jaune protested weakly.  
  
“You mean your girlfriend can handle you,” they replied, pointing to Pyrrha. “She sure likes to hide you behind her, that’s for sure. She keep your balls in that fanny pack, or did y’all decide to get rid of ‘em as a unit?”  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Pyrrha asked, her tone lowering. She had a feeling she was right to be uncertain about D.D. now, and she didn’t like where this was going. 

“Speaking of starting stuff…” Jerry muttered under his breath.  
  
“You heard me loud and clear, or am I slurrin’ bad after three?” D.D. asked, faking concern. “Don’t tell me I’ve gone and forgotten how to hold a drink down.”  
  
“ _Sacre_ , you never have trouble with that, now if you could just hold your tongue, we might be in business,” Spencer replied. 

“Private, there’s a time and a place for that, and neither are here,” Fyodor warned, receiving a sly grin from D.D. in reply as they leaned back in their seat, taking a long, obnoxiously loud slurp of their alcohol.  
  
“Don’t mind that,” Lais assured Pyrrha, shaking his head with a weary smirk. “They’re always a bit of a tosser when they’re drunk.”  
  
“Not that they’re ever sober,” Spencer replied. His eyes drifted from Pyrrha to the still-untouched burger in front of her, and his visible eyebrow quirked upward. “You gonna eat that?”  
  
“No,” she replied, “I’m not very hungry, I’m afraid, but thank you.”  
  
“Pass it, then, I’m starving.”  
  
Pyrrha did so, pushing the sandwich across the table and focusing her attention on her team for now. They seemed to be a bit more at ease, even with D.D.’s prodding, but something about this situation still activated her ‘tournament brain’, sent her looking for exits, weapons, defensible positions, anything that would give her an advantage if this came to blows, despite the fact that, for all the bluster and paranoia aboard this vessel, there was seemingly no reason to believe they wouldn’t be safe in this room.  
  
“You alright, Pyr?” Jaune asked, drawing her out of her thoughts and to her partner, his big blue eyes open and honest in their concern for her. Kind, but unbearably fragile, at least in her mind. Something, _someone_ to protect, whether he believed he needed it or not, and if she was right in her suspicions, he would probably need the backup. 

“It’s nothing. Just have a lot on my mind,” she replied, and ended it there.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, for once I'm on a roll. 
> 
> Sorry for any errors, my betas have all but flaked on me except for the lovely Sgt_Chrysalis, and I wanted to get this one off the press. I gave it some pretty intense looks, but it probably still isn't very good, heh. 
> 
> Anyway, look who's back! And new people!
> 
> I don't know if y'all have figured out D.D.'s thing yet but I hope you do soon, they're my favorite character at this point.


	4. Aliens and Predator Armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JNPR gets dragged out, XCOM fractures, and a plan starts to form.

A command meeting so soon after their little powwow wouldn’t have been Adam’s first choice, but it was becoming evident lately that his choice wasn’t the one Grace was going to go with, especially when it came to the rather delicate matter of four aliens showing up in the middle of their operational theater. Combined with the rather rough two weeks that preceded  _ that  _ surprise, and a proper sit-down was uncomfortable, but necessary.   
  
About ninety percent of Adam’s discomfort was the fact that, by virtue of being a  _ command  _ meeting, Jane was there. She wasn’t in uniform, having spent the past month coordinating counterintelligence against ADVENT in Canada, trying to keep the Chosen off of XCOM’s tail long enough for them to make some headway on stopping the AVATAR Project. It was working, for now, but Operation Tone Deaf was a while away yet, and Jane being back meant no one (no one competent, anyhow) was running interference. 

Aside from Adam and Jane, the ‘command roster’ had grown painfully thin. With Sergeant Prior and Lieutenant Verhoeven dead, the former’s Murder Team completely wiped out and the latter’s Marksman Team reduced to Alexios’ daughter Kassandra and Corporal Eaves, the only other field medic who hadn’t gotten pasted by ADVENT,they were now down to four active fireteam leaders—five if they disregarded his advice and put Murphy back on the line— and forty-three active field operatives not counting said leaders. According to the holoprojector in Grace’s office, addressing the recent casualties and command deficit was first on the agenda.   
  
Other than addressing the elephant in the room.

“Where the hell is Colonel Sidorov?” Grace asked.    
  
“Dunno, I haven’t seen him,” Adam replied. The Colonel was technically above Adam on the totem pole, for reasons Adam himself didn’t understand. He never complained, mind. What Adam had acquired through decades of warfare, Fyodor seemed to grasp like a fish to water. The man was, quite simply, a strategic, tactical, and combat genius, made all the more intimidating by the fact that aside from his height, he was probably the single least intimidating man on the Avenger, gently going on about praxis this and horizontal organization that and reading his fucking books whenever he wasn’t carving through aliens with frightening efficiency.    
  
“I did,” Sergeant Eda Hamadou, Warrior Team’s leader, replied. She’d just gotten back from scouting a potential base of operations near Yamantau. Some of the Russian operatives were spreading rumors around that the old Russian military had a base there, and if any of that tech wasn’t trashed in the last days of the conflict, it would definitely come in handy. “He was in the hallway with Corporal Hall, heading towards the lab from what I saw.”

“The lab?” Sergeant Gage Seok, Assassin Team’s leader, asked. He’d somehow survived taking two to the chest from a MEC unit, through luck of such arcane proportions that Adam could not even begin to fathom, and was recovering surprisingly well. He’d be back in action next week, was the consensus from Jerry and Eaves. “I can get why Jerry might be going there, but why Fyo?” 

“They never reported to me,” Tygan stated. “I believe that Fyodor may have gone to see our new arrivals with his own eyes.”    
  
“Good thing it’s him and not someone else,” Adam said, shaking his head. “Still, we can’t have him missing out on an important debrief because he wants to play hearts and minds.”   
  
“I don’t know why the fuck we’re wasting our time. Can we really trust that they’re not infiltrators?” Eda asked. “We know nothing about them and you just put them next to the most critical part of the ship!”   
  
“And yet nothing’s exploded and nobody’s died,” Shen replied. “Why don’t we all just cool our heels for a minute, huh?”   
  
“It  _ has  _ only been an hour or so,” Jane stated, matter-of-fact. “Regardless, we need to get Sidorov back in here. Jones, did you get a hold of him?”   
  
_ Jones _ . As if she couldn’t be bothered to say his first name.    
  
“Yeah, he’s on his way. Supposedly,” Adam replied, leaning back in his seat and giving Jane a side-eye. She was starting to look worn down, the stress of her new duties doing a number on her. If they were on better terms at the moment, he’d have tried to talk to her about it. “Anything we can cover without him?”   
  
“I’d rather wait,” Grace replied, thumbing through something on her own PDA before placing it on her desk. “Is anyone else missing?”   
  
“Aside from Sergeant MacAuley, all of our command staff is present,” Tygan replied. “On that note…”   
  
“No, we’re not putting him in here,” Adam interrupted. He’d anticipated this line of questioning, and he’d made his call on it already. The Commander could, theoretically, overrule him, but he had a feeling that she trusted his judgement enough to stand by him on this. “The man’s not cut out for it. We put it on him, and he cracked, no fault of his. We can’t afford to keep putting pressure on him if we want to keep our operational integrity. If we’re going to do anything with him, we need to have him seconding any new promotions we’ve got.”    
  
“He’s one of the only ops we have with any leadership experience, Adam,” Jane said.    
  
“I don’t care, he’s  _ not cut out for it _ ,” Adam insisted. “And you don’t get to make the call for him either. At the end of the day, it’s Grace’s call.”   
  
“And I agree with the Captain,” Grace added. “Murphy’s competent in the field, but especially after Dragnet, I can’t in good conscience put him in command again. He seemed to do fine on the search for Vahlen, so I’m content keeping him on Menace if that’s what Adam wants.” 

“I’m fine with that, sir,” Adam replied. 

“Good, then we don’t have to get into  _ that  _ later,” Grace said with a smile, just as the door to her office opened. “Ah, perfect. Done playing house, Colonel?”   
  
Adam turned to see the new arrival, and sure enough, Fyodor was leaning against the doorframe, grinning like an idiot. If he knew he was in the doghouse over his little stunt, he certainly didn’t show it.    
  
“Yes, ma’am, I had a wonderful time. The children are a delight, if a bit nervous. Perhaps a bit of kindness could do them some good, no?”    
  
“Fucking idiot,” Eda grumbled.    
  
“If we can keep that to ourselves, Sergeant Hamadou,” Bradford replied icily, “we can start the meeting. First order of business is roster check. How are our teams doing? Menace?”    
  
Adam sighed, trying to think of how best to address what his team was dealing with. Sophie’s antics were getting out of hand, and trying to address them directly wasn’t working. This wasn’t a  _ real  _ military anymore, and Sophie seemed plenty willing to take advantage of the lack of formal chain of command to grind on his nerves. Roderick was his own can of worms that nobody could deal with sane and sober, and Murphy, well… he still needed to adjust. Jerry was doing well enough, though. Ideally, he would keep doing well. Adam tried his hardest not to play favorites, but he couldn’t help but like the lad. He tried his damnedest, and he made the cut when the chips were down.

“Menace is fully operational, Central,” Adam replied. “Murphy’s integrating with the team about as well as can be expected, but it could be a lot worse, so you won’t hear me whinging. Jerry and Roderick are about the usual. Sophie… remains an issue. She’s been targeting Jerry for the past week and trying to start shit with him, and it’s led to conflicts with Hitman Team. I’ve tried to handle the matter myself, but she refuses to listen to me, and there’s not really much within the chain here I can do. Not like we’ve got a formal NJP system here.”    
  
“We can make one,” Bradford replied. “I’ll have a talk with her when we’re done here. The last thing I need is one of our two remaining field medics fucking up because of bunkhouse drama. Hitman, you’re up.”   
  
Fyodor shook his head. “We could be better. Team is fully operational, but barely. D.D. continues to be D.D. no matter what we do, and the recent fight with Corporal Thomas only contributes to their ‘me versus the world’ mentality. I would ask that you talk to D.D. as well, should you feel it necessary, and perhaps discuss addiction treatment.”    
  
“There’s not exactly much we can do about a drinking problem here,” Bradford replied. “Tygan?”   
  
“I’m afraid I don’t have the time to monitor a patient going through withdrawals or to enforce an action plan for a controlled recovery,” Tygan agreed. “I will gladly workshop a possible treatment plan with Corporal Eaves and Private Hall after the meeting’s conclusion.”    
  
“Sounds better than nothing,” Fyodor agreed. “Other than that, we are okay. I worry that Alexios’ actions on our most recent foray were out of line and jeopardized the mission. He claims to recognize them, but makes no effort to change how he approaches them.” 

“You talked to Kass about that?” Bradford asked. “I’ve noticed he’s been a bit on edge lately.”   
  
“She doesn’t know either, but she offered to talk to him about it.”   
  
“Hopefully that’ll solve the issue. If not, we may need to take it to the top,” Adam said. “I don’t want to jeopardize any more covert ops.”    
  
“I agree,” Grace replied. “Alright, how’s Warrior?”   
  
“Fit for fighting, Commander,” Eda replied. “Kassandra’s leg is back in working order and we’re ready to deploy.”   
  
“And Assassin?”   
  
Gage gave a slow shake of his head. “We’re still reeling from Blind Guardian, but we’ll be ready when you need us and get replacements for Archer and Stefansson.”    
  
“Alright, I’ve got a few new bloods in mind for that. Have you met Saritch and Saetang yet?” Grace asked.   
  
“I met Nat the other day, but Saetang is a new one,” Gage replied. “I can introduce myself if you send the info.”   
  
“Sounds good, I’ll get you on it.” Grace turned to Eda now. “While I’m thinking about rookies, what do you think of Reilly?”   
  
“He’s an annoying little shit, but he’s not getting in the way,” Eda replied. “Van Pey and I’ll straighten him out.” 

“Good, but don’t rag the poor kid too bad, we need every sharp eye we can get with Archer gone,” Grace cautioned her. Roland Archer was a good man, had been one of the best snipers XCOM had in the wake of Gatecrasher, but he was never a particularly lucky man. ADVENT had his number one day, and the hole he’d left in the roster wasn’t an easy one to replace. Spencer and Sophie tried their best, but with the former down an eye and the latter’s overconfidence, it was a hard sell. “Alright then, next order of business. You all know Samantha Eaves, yeah? Well, with Sergeant Nkidze dead, Private Hall is our only field medic. Eaves is one of the few people on this boat with medical experience. I’m considering having her shadow Assassin and learn our combat tactics, have her grab a Gremlin and a gun on the way out the door and be ready to deploy by next week. What do you think about that?”    
  
“I’m fine with it,” Gage replied. “She’s a sweetheart, but not a little wallflower. I think she’ll handle it okay.”    
  
“Anyone disagree?”    
  
“Not particularly, I don’t reckon,” Adam replied, looking around the room to confirm it. Sure enough, not even Tygan was objecting. Evidently the good doctor understood just how badly Eaves’ expertise would be needed.    
  
“While parting with Samantha is no doubt a blow to the science team’s resources, she’s by far the most competent medical officer aboard the ship,” Tygan stated somberly. “I only ask that she be kept as safe as reasonably possible in the field.”   
  
“Nothing’ll happen under my eye, doc, don’t worry,” Gage replied with a grin. “She’ll be back right as rain, and that’s a promise.”   
  
_ ‘Hope it’s one you can keep, sunshine,’  _ Adam thought to himself, before giving Grace a short wave. “I think we’re done here, ma’am.”   
  
“Right, the big one, then,” she replied, letting off a terse sigh and leaning over her desk. “You’ve all been thinking about it, guys, and I have too. I know some of you and your men have VERY strong opinions on the matter, so let’s get this over with. Team JNPR. We’ve got them on this ship, and I’ll be honest, I’m not fond of the idea of kicking four lost children off into the middle of nowhere  _ or  _ into an ADVENT city center, especially if they’re actually aliens.”   
  
“I don’t think they’d have any trouble,” Shen said, “their tech is something else.”   
  
“I thought you  _ weren’t  _ going to be snooping around and messing with their weapons, Lily,” Bradford stated, mild irritation creeping into his tone. 

“I can’t help it, this stuff’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Lily replied. “Their ammunition uses some kind of alternative propellants that are completely unlike anything recorded here on Earth, and somehow their weapons can change… like, into  _ other weapon forms _ . Nora’s hammer, for example. It’s a hammer that can compress and fold in on itself into a grenade launcher. Imagine if we were able to co-opt that tech.”    
  
“I beg your pardon?” Adam asked, incredulous. He hadn’t gotten a look at anyone but Jaune’s weapons, but that seemed frankly ridiculous. “Did you say it turns into a grenade launcher?” 

“If you don’t believe me, you’re more than welcome to come down to the armory and see for yourself,” Shen replied. “It’s intense stuff. And that’s not getting into that business of them taking direct hits from a Berserker and not even bruising.” 

“I still would like to retrieve those blood samples,” Tygan added.    
  
“No, Tygan,” Grace stated firmly. “They’re our guests for now, and frankly, I don’t like the idea of playing around with their gear, much less their blood. Still, I understand that you’re concerned about the possibility of them being connected to the Ethereals, and I admit that it’s very much a possibility. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen, but we can’t act solely on that assumption and risk doing something we can’t walk back from. We may be ‘terrorists’ to the rest of the world, but I’d like to think we have some goddamn principles.”   
  
“So what do you suggest then, sir?” Eda asked, clearly upset at the solution not being as straightforward as ‘off the boat with a bullet to the back of the head’. “We bring them into our ops, hold hands and sing Kumbaya?” 

“We’re just going to have a conversation, since it seemed to work so well for Colonel Sidorov,” Grace replied, looking to Fyodor. “What do you think?”   
  
“I believe I may have made a connection, if a bit of a strenuous one. They do not trust us,” Fyodor replied. “Not that they have any reason to.”   
  
“Well, let’s fix that, shall we?” Grace grinned and motioned to the door, obviously hatching a plan. “Jane, take Gage and Eda and get the Mess prepped. Adam, gather the teams. Fyodor, get those kids and bring ‘em over when we give you the signal. Let’s see if this little heart to heart works out.” 

“You can’t seriously be suggesting-” Eda began to protest, only for Jane to cut her off at the pass.   
  
“I don’t believe the Commander asked for your input, Hamadou, get your head out of your ass for five minutes or I’ll send my foot to give it company,” Jane ordered, before giving Adam a Look. The old Jane Look. The predecessor to a Jane Talk, usually, but there didn’t seem to be time for a Jane Talk right about now.    
  
“Later,” Adam said, seemingly mollifying Jane, who nodded in reply and left the room, Eda and Gage in tow. Fyodor wasn’t far behind them. It wouldn’t be long before the mess was packed, and considering that Adam was the closest thing the organization had to a voice of reason on his best day, he couldn’t afford to be late to the proceedings, nor could the rest of command. With that in mind, he turned to Bradford. He knew Grace would be attending, but not the Central Officer. “You comin’ along, John?”    
  
“Someone’s gotta fly this thing, but I wish I could. You’re gonna need all the help you can get corralling the men.” Bradford replied, before looking at Shen and Tygan. “You two got anything better to do?”   
“I have a lot of stuff to worry about with the EXO and Spider prototypes,” Shen said. “I could take a minute, but if it’s all the same to you, I really need to get back to work.”   
  
“The Elerium study won’t be complete until the end of the month at this rate,” Tygan replied, “and the magnetic coil weapon designs are only just nearing completion. I’m afraid I’m currently indisposed. I’ve already taken too much valuable time, if we’re to have the weapon prototypes in the field for our next operation.”   
  
“Alright then,” Bradford replied, “we’ll regroup later. Commander, I’m heading back up to the bridge.”    
  
With that, he was on his way out, as were Shen and Tygan. Only Adam and Grace remained, and Adam was pretty sure why.    
  
“You feeling okay, AJ?” she asked. ‘AJ.’ Before he got his nick back in the original invasion, he was ‘AJ’, because there was another Adam Jones who had a bit more tenure than him, and ‘Llewyn’ was a bitch to pronounce if you weren’t Welsh, by the way everyone mangled it. Grace and Shen were about the only people who called him ‘AJ’ anymore. Anyone else that did was long dead. “How’s the-”   
  
“Bad,” he replied, cutting the line of questioning there. “Bad day. Last in a string, but I’ll be fine. How’s the Overdrive supply?”   
  
“We’ve got enough, but Tygan said it’s only a temporary stopgap. If you need some, go and swing by Engineering. Tell ‘em it’s on my orders if they ask questions.”   
  
“Ma’am.”   
  
“That’s an order, Captain. Go get medicated and meet us in the Mess.”    
  
Adam sighed, grinning and shaking his head. He wasn’t the only stubborn old head on this ship, that was for sure. “Sir, yes sir.”    
  


* * *

  
Nora was usually a pretty relaxed person, at least, she liked to think so. She didn’t really worry very much unless it was serious stuff, like Grimm, or a big test, or the crippling existential dread and roiling maelstrom of emotions that comes with being a hormonal teenager.   
  
She was pretty worried right now. Not because she was afraid for her team, mind, she figured that they could handle it if things got freaky, but because the situation they were in was just so…  _ bizarre.  _ One minute they’d been on a class assignment looking at old rocks, then they were chasing some kind of monster through the woods, and now they were here, in an airship full of people who didn’t know what an Aura was. Not to mention that some of them didn’t seem entirely cool with them being on the ship, but maybe that would work out once they realized JNPR wasn’t a threat. 

She hoped, anyway. 

For now, it had been a relatively quiet evening. ‘Hitman Team’, as Jerry called them, were really nice folks for the most part, even if D.D. was being a bit weird towards Jaune and Pyrrha, but then again, everyone was weird towards them. They probably saw what Nora saw, and that meant that at the very least, romantic tension so thick you could cut it with a knife was a constant between worlds. The more things change…   
  
Then, because why the heck not, the proceedings had been interrupted by, what else, a  _ meeting _ . Adam had come to the door and demanded the attention of Hitman Team, told JNPR to hang back until they were called, and then left with all of Nora’s would-be new friends. It was honestly pretty rude, and Nora had half a mind to disobey him and go find out what the heck was going on anyway, but Ren was quick to stop her.    
  
“Nora. The last thing we need is to cause a scene,” he warned, as if they hadn’t already. Jaune was quick to seemingly pull the sentiment straight from Nora’s brain. 

“Like we haven’t,” Jaune replied. “This is creeping me out. Some of these guys seem like they’d sooner shoot us than help us get home.”   
  
“Some of them would,” Pyrrha stated. “This ‘XCOM’ organization is clearly terrified of the idea of infiltration. If they’re so unwilling to trust those that look…  _ somewhat _ like them, they obviously have plenty of enemies to be afraid of.”    
  
Pyrrha had a point. While their gear was brighter, and Ren’s eyes were a prettier shade of pink than any of the guys on this airship, the XCOM guys didn’t look all that dissimilar- just regular dudes and dudettes with boring hair and eye colors. Heck, they even spoke the same language somehow (how that worked, Nora wasn’t entirely sure, but she wasn’t about to ask and make things even more confusing. 

“So what are we gonna do?” Nora finally spoke up. While she was, by her own admission, not the smartest bulb in the box, even she knew they needed to have a plan going into whatever was about to happen. She assumed they were gonna get dragged into another meeting of some kind, just with more people, and that wasn’t something she wanted to go into alone, in the literal or figurative sense. “It’s obvious they don’t trust us, but how are we gonna fix that?”   
  
“I don’t know,” Jaune replied. “I don’t see how we can. It’s not like we can prove anything we’ve been saying. We can’t contact home, either, I checked my Scroll earlier and I don’t have any signal.”   
  
“Oh…  _ oh _ ...” Pyrrha hadn’t been having a good time since they got here, but the more that was happening, the more worried she seemed to get. “So no one knows where we’ve gone? Have they even figured out that we’re missing?” 

“We don’t know,” Ren replied. “There’s no way of finding out unless someone finds a way to reach us, or XCOM finds a way to get us back home. I assume that’s what they’re debating now, whether to help us get home, and how to do so.”

“Or they could be planning on how they’re going to get rid of us,” Pyrrha countered, and Nora couldn’t help but wonder what the heck had gotten into her. She wasn’t exactly the life of the party most of the time, but Pyrrha was almost always pretty upbeat, if not exuberantly so. What had her so freaked out?    
  
“Pyrrha, I don’t think they could get rid of us if they tried,” Nora said, attempting to ease her teammates’ worries. “I mean, even without our weapons, between the two of us we could easily do some damage. All we’d have to do is find ‘em, anyway!”    
  
“Nora-” Pyrrha began, stopped only by her partner placing a hand on her shoulder.    
  
“Pyrrha,” Jaune said, obviously nervous himself. “I get it. But freaking out about it isn’t going to change the outcome. We need a plan for how we’re gonna deal with this and get home, regardless of whether these XCOM people want to help us. Can we all agree on that?”    
  
Pyrrha took a deep breath, and nodded. “Right.”   
  
“Yep!” Nora replied.   
  
“Then we’re all in agreement,” Ren finished, looking to Jaune. “So, what’s the plan, Jaune?”   
  
“We comply until we find out what they want and how they plan on getting us home, if they do. We go from there.”   
  
That wasn’t much of a plan, really. Then again, there wasn’t really time to think of a much better one. This one would do until they got to that next step, so long as these XCOM guys didn’t do anything crazy. Their leadership seemed reasonable, so Nora figured they’d at least try to get them out of here, if not be particularly nice about it.    
  
“Alright. We’ll follow your lead,” Pyrrha agreed, seemingly speaking for the whole team. Not that Nora minded—she’d have agreed, too.    
  
Just in time, too. There was a knock on the door, and the familiar, friendly voice of Fyodor on the other side as it opened.    
  
“JNPR,” he said, poking his head through and motioning behind him. “Could you please come with me? There’s something we need to discuss.”

“With who?” Jaune asked, standing up regardless. He was obviously just as nervous as Pyrrha had been, no, probably moreso, but he tried his best to stand tall anyway. It took a lot of guts. That was what Nora thought was the best thing about Jaune; even with all the fake transcript business and such, he still busted his butt every day, did everything in his power to be the leader JNPR needed him to be, and stuck out his neck before any of his team could volunteer to do it for him. Sure, he wasn’t all that great in a fight yet, and he could be a dork sometimes, but his heart was clearly in the right place. His team would follow him into the darkest, most Grimm-infested hole on Remnant, and Nora would be the first to volunteer to do so.    
  
Thankfully, considering this wasn’t Remnant, if she had to follow him into a hole, there at least wouldn’t be Grimm. There might be  _ worse  _ things in it, but no Grimm. 

“Well…” Fyodor started, awkwardly looking to the rest of JNPR before answering. “You, uh… well… everyone.”   
  
“Everyone?” Ren repeated.   
  
“ _ Everyone _ .” Fyodor emphasized. “Don’t worry. There shouldn’t be any trouble, and if there is, we’ll make sure it doesn’t last long.”   
  
Nora was satisfied with that answer, and it seemed that Jaune was too. Ren didn’t exactly broadcast his concerns, but Nora had known him long enough to know that when he brushed his fingers on the insides of his sleeves, he was nervous. Pyrrha, meanwhile, made far fewer reservations. She was stiff as a board, eyes rapidly darting between her teammates, like if she looked away from any of them for more than a second, they’d be gone.    
  
“Alright,” Jaune replied, “let’s go.”    
  
Fyodor stepped out of the doorway and motioned for JNPR to follow him, and follow they did. The halls were almost entirely empty, devoid of all but the low hum of the ship around them. It was honestly kind of creepy, considering how  _ loud  _ everything had been since they’d arrived, but Nora figured it wouldn’t be this quiet for long considering said loudness. She just hoped it wasn’t a bad sign.    
  
The walk through the winding halls ended in, of all the places, a tavern or barroom of some kind. It was surprisingly spaced out, with a good four or five tables set up, surrounded by chairs filled with various people of different colors and genders, and a bar which seated a few more, including Adam, Grace, and the rest of the people JNPR had been dragged up to meet. Adam in particular looked strikingly different from when Nora had last seen him, but she wasn’t sure what it was that looked off, only that it was  _ very  _ off.    
  
“Well, look who shows up!” Roderick shouted from one of the tables, raising a glass of what was probably beer. “Our favorite alien infiltrators!”    
  
“If ye dinnae shut yer mouth, I’ll set about ye,” Joseph warned, glaring daggers at the masked man before turning back to offer JNPR a weak grin. The rest of the room was almost dead silent, all eyes examining JNPR like they were fresh cuts of meat, and none of those eyes were particularly friendly.    
  
“Kids,” Grace greeted from behind the bar, a few glasses of water in front of her. “Thirsty? I got you some water. Take a seat at the bar, relax.”    
  
The team looked amongst themselves, Nora catching Ren’s eye first. He was obviously not a huge fan of accepting a drink from a complete stranger, even if said drink was water, but refusing didn’t seem like the wisest idea either. Figuring that maybe she needed to set the pace, Nora accepted the offer, sitting with her back to Grace and watching the room’s eyes follow her, then the rest of her team one by one as they followed her. 

The silence was  _ crushing _ . A muscular, tattooed girl with olive skin and an eerily familiar look about her lit up a cigarette, looked to Grace, then shrugged, before speaking up with a thick, unfamiliar accent.   
  
“So are we just going to sit around with our dicks in our hands,” she asked, “or are we going to do something?”   
  
“And what do you suggest we do, Kassandra?” asked the woman next to her, a burly, dark-skinned woman with a shaved head. “Do we go shake their hand? Give them a hug, maybe? Oh, perhaps you could brew some tea for them?”   
  
“Oh, for the love of…” Adam grumbled, before raising his voice and standing up. “Everyone, put a bloody cork in it for  _ five fucking seconds _ ! We’re stuck with these kids, and they’re stuck with us, so the least you can do is be civil. Make like church and show the proper bloody reverence, yeah?” With that, the man pointed with a veiny, pale arm to Jaune. “Start by introducing yourselves and telling us who you are. Quick about it.”   
  
“Uh-err, hi!” Jaune replied, surprisingly quick on the draw this time. “Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue.”    
  
“I’m Nora! Nora Valkyrie,” Nora followed, “and would it kill ya to show a bit of kindness?”   
  
“Yes,” a grey-haired man deadpanned with a similar accent to this ‘Kassandra’. “Possibly, anyway.”

“I don’t believe the captain stuttered, Alexios,” a woman next to Adam stated warily. “Can it.”    
  
Pyrrha cleared her throat, an attempt at bringing the attention back to her as she introduced herself. “I am Pyrrha Nikos-”   
  
“THE Pyrrha Nikos?” Roderick suddenly exclaimed, jumping out of his seat and pointing at the man who had spoken before him and Kassandra. “Holy  _ shit _ , guys, it’s  **the** Pyrrha Nikos!”

Pyrrha looked as if she’d been shot. Her face reddened, her eyes widened, and her fists clenched so hard her Aura flickered. She watched Roderick like a hawk as he slowly moved his hands to point at Pyrrha, his mouth hidden by his mask but his eyes betraying his shit-eating grin.    
  
“I have no idea who the fuck you are, you just have the same last name as two people on this ship,” Roderick stated, his voice instantly deflating but his mirth still clearly detectable.    
  
“I-what?” Pyrrha asked, mortified. It was obvious that she and the rest of Team JNPR had gotten the faintest sliver of hope that someone, anyone here knew who they were and where they came from, but to have it dashed so quickly, seemingly for fun, was honestly pretty demoralizing. 

“Funny coincidence, that,” Kassandra noted, incredulous. “What are the odds?”    
  
“It’s just that. A coincidence,” Pyrrha replied, collecting herself with admirable composure, before looking past Nora at the last of Team JNPR. “Ren?”

“Lie Ren,” Ren replied. “I believe that covers us. Now what?”    
  
‘Now what’ indeed. Once again, the room fell into silence. Various XCOM guys and gals looked at JNPR, at Grace, at Adam, and at each other, waiting for someone to do something. It was as if they not only didn’t trust JNPR, but they didn’t trust each other, either. Some of the faces more familiar to her, like Hitman Team, crowded around their table, and Jerry, sitting with Adam and what must be his team, were trying to offer JNPR silent encouragement—or, in D.D. and Roderick’s cases, sly looks that were even more worrisome than the paranoid ones.

Then, there was one guy. 

At the same table as Kassandra sat a man in arid, dry colors, with lightly tanned skin and a thin, almost penciled-in looking beard, with a downright silly cowboy hat emblazoned with a very,  _ very  _ gaudy gold buckle atop it. Clearing his throat, he removed the hat from his head to reveal a head of neatly-trimmed black hair, and wide, youthful eyes. 

“ _ Sono Matteo _ ,” the man said, before clearing his throat and cutting his eyes back and forth nervously. “Sorry. I’m Matteo.” 

A short pause followed, before Jaune waved back at the man. “Hey, Matteo.” 

A friendly-looking man at the table next to his offered a wave of his own, sitting up straight and giving one of the most sincere, nicest smiles Nora had seen since showing up here. “Hi guys, I’m Gage.” 

The woman next to Adam doffed her baseball cap with a stern nod. “Jane Kelly.”   


A man at Gage’s table, one that towered over everyone else in the room, with dark skin and a beard that would put a bear to shame, spoke up next. He obviously wasn’t happy, judging by his glare and the man next to him nudging him rather forcefully, but he did it anyway. “Phillipe Richard.” 

The man next to him pulled down his hoodie to reveal a messy fauxhawk with an intricate floral design shaved into the stubble on the sides of his head. “Remi.” 

Then, more people started speaking up. Not everyone, mind, but a surprising number- about half the room had introduced themselves, all using names that Nora had never heard before. Some of them were boring, plain, like James, Lucas, and Abe, others were new, exotic, like Klaus, Juno, and Hanako. 

The grey-haired man who had given Nora a bit of lip had refused to introduce himself, instead glaring pointedly at Pyrrha. Man, JNPR had been getting a  _ lot  _ of glares lately. 

“Well, this is awkward now. Rad,” Jerry stated. “Good job, guys. Take five.”    
  
“Can we go now, or do we have to suffer through more of this?” the woman next to Kassandra asked. “I don’t want to be anywhere near these alien freaks.”   
  
“Eda,” Matteo scolded her, “you could do with-”   
  
“Rank.”   
  
“Fuck rank, and fuck you.”    
  
_ That  _ got Eda’s attention.    
  
“You wanna repeat that, Corporal?” she asked, standing up from her seat and staring down at the obviously unintimidated Matteo.    
  
“I would love to, would you like it in Italian? ‘Tis the language of  _ amore _ , after all-”   
  
“That will be all of that, you two,” Grace spoke firmly, locking eyes with Eda, then Matteo. “Sit down and shut up.”    
  
No one had been expecting that, it seemed. Eda didn’t say another word as she planted herself back in her seat with alarming speed, and Nora swore she could see Matteo shoot her and the rest of JNPR a quick grin before giving his hat a quick adjustment and looking at Grace expectantly.   
  
“Are we all finished bellyaching and bitching, or do we need another minute before I move on?” she asked. “Corporal Alexios? Sergeant Hamadou? Are we good?”   
  
No response.   
  
“Is there anyone else who would like to submit a complaint before I tell you how this is going to go?” 

Again, no response. Grace leaned over the bar, looking to JNPR with a ‘don’t fuck with me’ stare that would probably stop a Beowolf cold. “There’s some things we need to talk about, but that can wait. For now…” Her attention turned to the assembly of XCOM guys. “...you all are part of a military organization. Yes, I know we don’t have an organized supply chain, government backing, air support, artillery, armored fighting vehicles,  _ anything  _ that makes us an equivalent of any pre-modern military, but we are still a military force, with a chain of command. I am at the top of that chain of command, so when I tell you that you are going to buckle down and follow my orders, that’s not a suggestion. We have no proof these kids are alien infiltrators, and judging by what we’ve seen so far, we have little reason to believe they are, but rest assured, I will be doing my due diligence to ensure that our opsec isn’t compromised. That’s my job as the Commander. Your job, as troops under my command, is to follow my orders and see them carried out. So, here’s my orders.”   
  
She pointed to each member of JNPR in turn, punctuating her statement with her fingertip. “Leave. Them. The fuck. Alone. You don’t have to like them, just like you don’t have to like each other, or like me. You don’t have to trust them. You don’t have to give them the grand tour of the Avenger, you don’t have to drag them into the field, you don’t have to acknowledge they exist. What you have to do is keep your collective shit together until we find a way to get them home. We are dysfunctional and broken up enough as a unit  _ without  _ pointing fingers at each other and new arrivals over some sort of infiltration that hasn’t even happened yet. There’s no leaks in this boat, and with how paranoid you people are I don’t see any way there can be. You’d kill half the crew just to find a rat squeaking in the pipes. You’re to treat these kids with some decency, or don’t interact with them at all. Simple, right?”   
  
Silence. Dead, deafening silence. You could hear a pin drop. 

“The Commander asked you a question, XCOM,” Jane said, folding her arms. “Does she need to repeat herself?”

Again, no response. 

“We’re circling back to this later,” Grace stated, exasperated. “Out. Now. Hitman, Menace, you stay.” 

Slowly but surely, all but those two teams filed out of the room, a few of them shooting JNPR ugly looks as they did so, others being a bit more sympathetic about the whole thing. Nora wasn’t bothered either way, she could more than protect herself from a bunch of weirdos with guns, especially if they really  _ didn’t  _ have Auras, but that didn’t make her any less worried for her teammates, especially Pyrrha, who met every glare like it was a direct threat on her life. Nora had never seen her so…  _ rattled _ . She was a former tournament champion, she’d been in front of an audience her entire life, and this was what shook her? 

Nora didn’t blame her for being freaked out, anyone would be. The only reason Nora wasn’t was because she knew she had Ren and her teammates there to back her up if things went south. She hoped Pyrrha knew that too. 

The only XCOM guys left in the room were Hitman and Menace teams, and the mood in the room visibly shifted. All familiar faces, with the exception of the gray-haired man and Remi from earlier. Everyone, save for the gray-haired man, relaxed. He started to say something, only for Fyodor to cut him off.

“Alexios, there is no need to harass these children for events out of their control.”

“When they get you killed, I won’t hear any complaints,” Alexios replied, moving to exit his chair.

“ **Sit. The Fuck. Down.** ” Adam ordered. “Or I will walk over there, and  **sit** you down.” 

He sat down. 

“Now, there’s a reason you’re still here and they’re not,” Adam explained. “You’re first contact. Save for Remi, Menace was with me in that cave. Hitman, aside from Alexios, was basically press-ganged into bringing them into their abode and breaking bread. As such, you know more about JNPR than everyone on this ship.”   
  
With that, the man turned to look at JNPR, and Nora now realized what was off about him. His skin was ashy, and his veins glowed a dull orange, prominently pulsing against his skin. Even his eyes were glowing a bit. Not like Aura, though. Sickly. Like there was something inside him that wasn’t supposed to be there. His tone completely contrasted this—he was gentle, almost fatherly in the way he tried to talk to them. “You don’t know much about us, though, do you? These twelve people are in here because we’ve seen you up close and personal and know you aren’t a threat. If it’s at all possible, I’d like for at least the majority of us to be people you can trust.”

“I did not  _ fucking  _ consent to this,” Sophie protested.

“Silence is consent,” Roderick stated.

“I’m not being bloody silent, you daft-”

“Then why don’t you shut up!?” Roderick asked. “What did these kids do to you, huh? Show up? Do you think they  _ want  _ to fucking be here? Do you think that Nora over there woke up yesterday morning thinking, ‘dear Santy Claus, today I hope I get teleported to hell on Earth, far away from my home, my family, and my friends!’? That any of these kids asked for this? If you want them gone so much, then volunteer your scrawny ass straight out the door and go find a way to get them home, by all means, I will be right behind you. And when you get your ass killed because you ran in with a half-assed plan over a fit of paranoia, it won’t be their fault, it will be  _ yours _ . You have lived your entire life on this ship a fucking idiot, and at this rate you will  _ die  _ a fucking idiot.” 

“You honestly believe their story?” Murphy asked, speaking up for what had to be the first time since JNPR in the room. “I’m not going to advocate for shooting anyone yet. No reason to. But after all we’ve been through, after all we’ve seen happen, to us, to the Resistance, you want to take  _ this  _ at face value? This the mountain you want to die on, mates? It’s not my mountain, that’s for sure.”

“Wasn’t this about trying to make them feel better, or did we suddenly decide to make things worse without my input?” Jerry asked sarcastically. “I don’t think we voted on that one, Murph.”

Jaune seemed to be getting agitated. Nora only noticed it out of the corner of her eye, but now that she saw it, it was clear that he didn’t want to be in this room anymore, and that he was tired of hearing this. A part of her wanted to speak up, but another part of her, the part that hated their situation and was ready to be rid of it, told her to keep it down and let Jaune let it out for once. According to Pyrrha it was a pretty neat thing when he decided to stand up for himself, so Nora supposed one more chance to do so wouldn’t hurt. 

“What reason do they have to lie?” Lais asked. “They didn’t even know who we were when they got here, and as far as they know, we’re their only means of getting home. Not that we  _ can  _ get them home, but surely…” 

“Are we allowed to get any say in this, or do I have to spend the rest of however long it takes to get home getting screamed at and having guns pointed at me?”

Jaune had finally spoken up. His voice trembled slightly, and he sounded either halfway to tears of fear or tears of rage, but he’d spoken up, and it had gotten the room’s attention. 

“That was the intent, before  _ some people  _ decided to continue this pointless argument,” Grace said. “Look, we-”

“I asked if we were allowed to have any say in it.” 

Grace stopped herself, and gave a slight frown. “Okay, Jaune. Go ahead.” 

Jaune took a deep breath, steeling himself, before speaking. “You’re right, Roderick, I don’t want to be here. I want to go home, but I came here because there was something in Forever Fall that killed a bunch of people like no one I’d ever seen before, and would have hurt people in my world if I had let it get away. If I had to go back and had the choice to let it leave, I would jump through that portal all over again, and I know all of my teammates would make that same choice. We didn’t come here to get accused of being a spy or infiltrator or whatever you people think we are. We came to stop whatever that thing was, and we did it. Now, we just want to go home.”

“I understand that, son,” Jane said, “but from what it sounds like, we definitely can’t do that for you right now. You’re in the shit with us until we can, and I’ll be honest with you, we never could have foreseen anything like this. We have no way to get you home.”

“Dinnae if ADVENT does, either,” Joseph added. “Wager they’re oor best bet. Tha’s nae somethin’ they’ll show right off, though.”

“If we’re gonna get you home, we’re gonna need to wait out until we find some sort of ADVENT tech that can do it. Either that, or we find an egghead smart enough to get a lead on how we can open an interplanetary portal to a destination we can’t locate,” Murphy agreed. 

“Someone’s suddenly concerned about their wellbeing,” Spencer noted bitterly. “Did the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes today?” 

“I want them gone, not dead. They’re children.” 

“What a nice sentiment,” Pyrrha replied, voice  _ dripping  _ with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “I feel more welcome already.” 

Thankfully for everyone involved, that seemed to be the last of the disparaging comments for the evening. The room started to devolve into chatter about what course of action to take, and how such-and-such might know something about someone or something else, but Grace had evidently grown tired of small talk.    
  
“We’re coming back to this in the morning, just us,” she said. “Hitman and Menace, plus JNPR. We obviously still need to have some conversations, but for now, I’m calling it on this. Come back with an attitude adjustment, and let’s get to work. Kids, I’m sorry this went down this way. You have my word that I run a tighter ship than this, and if you need proof, I’ll be showing you. If you want security, Adam’s more than willing to keep an eye on you.” 

“Nothing’s happening to you on my watch,” he agreed, making an odd sign over his chest. “God’s my witness.”

“And if God fails him, then I won’t,” Fyodor stated. “I have never fled from an honest fight.”

“I’d personally feel safer if we had our weapons,” Ren spoke up at last, and Nora couldn’t help but feel stupid. There was no way-

“Done. Jane, go grab ‘em and bring ‘em to JNPR’s room. Loaded. If anyone gives you shit, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir.” With that, Jane stood up, and gave JNPR a wave. “Nice to meet ya, kids. Look forward to working with you.” Then, she was gone, a woman on a mission. Not the friendliest, but a welcome departure from the alternative. She seemed a bit stuck-up for Nora’s liking though. 

“Anything else that would set your mind at ease?”

“Could we be left alone unless we’re needed?” Pyrrha asked. “I can’t speak for my team, but I personally could do with some time away from all of this.”

“I think we’re all in agreement on that one,” Jaune said. 

“Then I’ll leave you to your business. If that’s all you want, you’re dismissed. Go back to your rooms and try to relax. I have some business with Hitman and Menace.”

Nora was the first to get out of her seat, thanking the Brothers both that she could finally move her legs, but by the time she’d given herself a little stretch, Pyrrha and Jaune were already out the door like Grimm were on their heels. Not that Nora blamed them. Not wanting to linger too much longer herself, she followed, with Ren staying behind her just in case. 

Still, it hadn’t been all bad. There were some people worth giving a chance on this ship, it seemed, from the way certain people had reacted, stuck up for them, the like. Nora thought it’d be kind of rude to leave it at that, so she stopped in the doorway, and turned to Grace and Adam. 

“Thanks, by the way!” she said, putting on a happy face and a smile. While Grace didn’t return it, Adam did, and offered her a lazy salute. 

“Good day to you, lass,” he replied. Good enough for her. With a quick about-face, Nora started back off for her team’s new lodgings, hoping that maybe, just maybe, there’d be a bit more of that and a lot less of the rest of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pyrrha: noooooo you can't just bully me and my team incessantly and suffer no real consequences for it
> 
> Read and review and all, things are going to start getting a bit spicier next chappy!


	5. Foundations

_ Beacon Academy _

Blake Belladonna had seen some strange things in her life. Being as she was the daughter of two of the most prominent Faunus rights activists on Remnant, she was no stranger to violence or strife, but this?

This was new.

Currently, Team RWBY sat in Ozpin’s office, flanked by Professors Port and Oobleck, as well as the two men they’d found in Forever Fall, surrounded by dead bodies and a mystery befitting a doorstopper novel. Two strange men, with names unlike any Blake had heard before, uniforms completely alien to her, rudimentary firearms, and no Aura to speak of, having somehow stumbled onto Remnant through a  _ portal _ . 

None of this made sense to her. Maybe Ozpin could parse it, but somehow, she doubted even the enigmatic Headmaster could read the situation here.

“And what were your names, gentlemen?” Ozpin asked.

“Lawrence Hamilton,” the blonde, mustachioed man replied, before pointing to his friend. The man, now sporting a large bandage wrapped around his head, spoke up, his tone a bit uneven. 

“Eric Frost, sir.”

“Thank you. I apologize for the circumstances under which we have to meet. Would either of you care for something to drink?”

“No, sir,” Lawrence replied. “A ride home would do me nice, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you can’t do that.”

Ozpin looked across the brim of his cup, first at the two gentlemen, then at Team RWBY, then back at the men. “I’m not certain that I can. My students have told me you have a rather… unique origin.”

“Yeah,” Yang replied. “Apparently they’re from ‘Earth’, wherever that is, and so is the thing JNPR was chasing when they disappeared.”

“Well, it isn’t  _ from  _ Earth, per se,” Eric corrected her, “but it’s living there. That’s where your missing kids are, no doubt about it.” 

“I see…” 

Ozpin took a sip of what Blake assumed to be his tea—she certainly never could tell what was in the cup, considering that he’d never,  _ ever  _ placed anything in it since RWBY walked into the room, and he’d been sipping for quite a while—before continuing. “And you say this creature that my students found was responsible for the bodies in the clearing?”

“Yes, sir,” Lawrence replied. “My guys. Good people, all of ‘em. A couple got away with Dr. Reiben, but I dunno if they’re still alive.”

“Can you tell me anything about this Doctor Reiben, or any of the other missing persons?” Ozpin asked.

“Reiben’s a fucking nutcase,” Eric replied, drawing a shocked look from Ruby, who, from what it seemed, wasn’t quite accustomed to coarse language. “Dude was constantly trying to work through ‘string theory’ and other wormhole related bullshit, we had to drag him away from the portal that brought us in here so he didn’t get cut in half. Zeke and Patinkay were with him, last I saw. Reiben’s got tattoos out the wazoo, a thick German accent, and he dyes his hair. Can’t miss him, I don’t think. Same with Zeke and his freaky-ass pink eyes.”

“I believe that helps, even if I’m afraid ‘German’ doesn’t ring a bell,” Ozpin replied. “Any others?”

“No, sir. Least, not that we know of,” Lawrence replied. “If it weren’t for your kids, I got a feelin’ the ‘zerker would have come back and finished us off. I hope they’re alright, but as it stands, I don’t know of any way to get ‘em back to you…unless…”

“Unless what, Lawrence?”

“Reiben,” Eric said, looking as if the proverbial light-bulb had lit up over his head. “String theory, wormholes. Maybe he can replicate the conditions with-”

“Yeah, I’m following you,” Lawrence finished, giving the man a grin before turning back to Ozpin and taking off his sunglasses. “We gotta find out if Doctor Reiben and Zeke are still alive. That’s your best bet for getting a way open to find your missing kids.”

“What about-” Eric began, only for Lawrence to interrupt.    
  
“We can worry about that when we  _ can actually get home _ , Eric,” Lawrence stated. “I ain’t particularly worried about that. I’m more worried about you.” With that, he looked over at Blake, expression softening as he jerked his head towards Eric. “He alright?”   
  
“Nurse Lazuli says the wound on his back may be getting infected, but she took care of the head wound. She’s not sure if there was a concussion, but she recommended bed rest to be safe,” Blake replied, before adding, “for both of you. She says you both need time to recover from your injuries.”

“I agree with Nurse Lazuli’s assessment,” Ozpin says, nodding to you before looking back at the strange men. “You’ve obviously been through quite a lot over the past few hours, if not longer, and your injuries, while not at all life-threatening, are severe enough to warrant monitoring. I would ask that you be our guest here at Beacon Academy until you’ve recovered from your injuries, at which point I’d be more than happy for any help you can give me in finding this ‘Doctor Reiben’. There are plenty of spare dorms you could lay claim to, and I will personally ensure you are not bothered during your time here.”

“Don’t need no special accommodations, Headmaster,” Lawrence replied. “I can sleep on the floor if you need me to.”

“I wouldn’t ask that of you, Mr. Lawrence.”

“What about our guys?” Eric asked, somber. “We, uh… gonna do anything?”

“I assure you,” Ozpin replied, “I’ve already sent staff to recover the bodies and make proper arrangements. We’ll honor your wishes for them, once we’ve finished the recovery effort.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“It’s no trouble at all. Did you have any other questions from me, either of you?”

“No, sir,” Lawrence replied, before looking at Eric. It was obvious the men had been friends for a long time by the way they looked at each other, watched out for each other even in the safe haven that was Beacon. Always looking behind each other’s backs, keeping close together, and checking up on one another, since they joined up with Team RWBY. The circumstances that brought them to the Headmaster’s office likely only strengthened that bond. Blake wished that somehow, they could have arrived sooner, perhaps found more survivors, but from what it sounded like, it was just a terrible case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. “You?”

Eric shook his head, immediately palming the bandages over his wound and wincing. “No, thanks. Think a quick nap might do me some good.”

“If that’s all, I’ll leave you to it. Glynda is waiting outside, she’ll show you around the campus and usher you to your room. I may have more questions for you in the future, but for now, you’re more than welcome to avail yourself of our facilities.”

“Thank you,” Lawrence said, standing up with a low groan of exertion before grabbing Eric’s chair for him and making sure he could stand steady. Once he was satisfied in his friend’s ability, he gently pushed him along and the two of them made for the exit. Blake could hear them whispering about something, but even with her improved Faunus hearing, she couldn’t make out much. Soon, they were gone, leaving Team RWBY alone with Ozpin. There was a long pause, a silence only broken by the light clatter of Ozpin’s drink as he returned it to his desk.

“Did you find any signs of JNPR?” 

“No, sir, we didn’t,” Weiss replied. “Other than those two, there was no evidence they’d even been there.” 

Ozpin didn’t immediately reply, obviously deep in thought. As far as Blake knew, something like this had never happened before. Sure, there had been stories of a couple of kids getting hurt, or worse, during their schooling, but that was part of the risks of the trade. There had  _ never  _ been any record of any disappearances like this, or any Grimm that could single handedly eradicate a team of huntsmen-in-training and leave no trace whatsoever, and if this other world stuff was actually true, then it was beyond anything anyone on Remnant had dealt with before. 

She just hoped it would be over soon, and that JNPR would be back where they belong, intact. 

* * *

_The Avenger_

Sophie Thomas, above everything else, was scared. 

She’d never admit that, mind you. If you show weakness, you’re dead. If you hesitate, you’re dead. If you even  _ think  _ for a second too long, you’re dead. That’s why she’d survived this long; not by playing nice, not by making friends, but by doing what had to be done, zero question, zero hesitation.

She wasn’t a fresh-faced, nobody recruit from fucking  _ Hull _ of all the shite places anymore, and she couldn’t afford to let these kids get away with whatever it is they were planning, despite everyone around her telling her they weren’t. You didn’t survive 22 years on the street by trusting people you’d never met, especially if those people jumped out of bloody portals and dressed like something out of a B-rate anime. 

Sophie stared at herself in the mirror. She was tall, but wiry, with dusty brown hair, glasses a size too big for her face, and a freckled, youthful face. The broken, still tweaked nose only added to the image of a kid in way over their head, just how she needed to be for this to work. She didn’t look like a threat, and that’s how she liked it. Discretion was the better part of valor. If you don’t look like you want a fight, or that you’re afraid of one, no one’s going to fight you. That means you can pick those fights on your terms. 

And Sophie Thomas very much had a fight to pick. She’d noticed how one of those JNPR kids was reacting to her and some of the others’ needling. ‘Pyrrha’ or summat. She was about Sophie’s height, but bigger, looked cut from marble yet as graceful as a dancer. She could probably snap Sophie’s neck with one arm, yet she was terrified of what the more skeptical elements of XCOM might do to her. 

She was right to be afraid.

Sophie had been asked to attend a little meeting of her own. Sergeant Hamadou from Warrior had called for a meeting of ‘like-minded individuals’ in the Warrior Team barrack. Sophie had been invited, as had Murphy, Phil, Kyle, Alexios, and Kassandra. She wanted to ‘workshop a solution to the JNPR problem’, and Sophie wanted in on that. XCOM, for all their faults and foibles, were the only thing standing between her and going back to the streets of New London, and she wasn’t going back to New London unless they buried her there. If these kids thought they could sneak aboard the Avenger and fool everyone with their innocent act, they had another thing coming. 

Was Sophie paranoid? Yes. Did she have a right to be? Hell yes.

It wasn’t a long walk from Menace’s room to Warrior’s, and the only person who saw her leave was Remi. Remi may have disagreed with Sophie’s opinions on the matter, but since he was Phil’s running buddy, and Phil shared those opinions, he’d likely keep his mouth shut. They locked eyes when Sophie left the room, and she could clearly see the disapproval in his gaze, not that she ever cared about anyone’s approval. Really, she didn’t. 

A quick walk down the hall and a knock on the door, and Sophie found herself in a crowd of halfway-sensible people for once. Sure,  _ halfway _ was about as generous as she could get, but you had to lack in sense to think you could fight ADVENT and win. These people were just slightly more sensible about it. 

Eda had crowded a bunch of chairs around the table in the bunkroom, six seats in total—Phil, far too big to sit comfortably in a normal chair for very long, had taken a seat on the couch, which he’d dragged into place by the table. He easily took almost half of its seating space. Kyle, not quite as burly, but getting there, smoked a cigarette, a mere fumble of the lips away from lighting his prodigious, bushy beard on fire. Alexios, looking as old and as angry as ever, sat at the end of the table farthest from Phil, while next to him, his daughter, Kassandra, kicked her feet up on the table. Eda had seated herself in front of Phil, the goliath of a man behind her almost acting as a shadow to the bellicose woman before him. 

“Well, if this isn’t the saddest motley crew I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Eda noted sourly, focusing her gaze on Sophie in particular. “Mad Minute. You’re only here on Warlord’s rec, so keep that big mouth shut for once, or I will not hesitate to fuck you up.” 

Warlord, right. Sophie could feel Murphy’s gaze boring into her from the back of the room. He’d said he wanted the kids gone but in all honesty, she hadn’t gotten the same suspicion towards them from him as she had from everyone else in the room, herself included. He almost seemed less like he was paranoid of their intentions, and more annoyed that they were present to begin with, merely begging the question of their loyalties as a means to get them to fuck off. 

“Yes’m,” she replied uneasily, taking a seat at the table. She could hear Murphy walking up behind her, pulling his seat from the table next to Sophie and all but collapsing into it, pushing the brim of his hat up to get a better view of the rest of the table. It felt uneasy, having him here next to her. It was simpler when these were all just people on other teams, people that didn’t have the personal connection to her. Not that Murphy was her friend, or anything, she didn’t need friends, much less ones like  _ George _ , but it still unnerved her that someone who she’d been in combat with on a couple of occasions, even spent time fucking with in the mess, was sitting next to her and plotting what could reasonably be construed as high treason if they were in anything but a paramilitary organization. 

“So, let’s get this out of the way now. I don’t believe for a second they’re not infiltrators,” Eda began, “but I don’t have any proof. With that in mind, killshots are a no-go. We can’t risk just offing them one at a time and letting all and sundry know we aren’t playing by the Commander’s rules. We have to be surgical about this. So, how do we want this done? Taking votes from all of you here.”

“I would prefer if we  _ don’t  _ stick our necks out just to get rid of ‘em unless you have an actual reason to believe they’re leaking intel,” Murphy replied, gruff as always. “I don’t like ‘em. Doesn’t mean I don’t have sense.”

“I agree with Murphy,” Kassandra replied. “I don’t like that one of them shares my last name, and that they somehow speak English despite being from another fucking planet, but that’s not enough grounds to say they’re leaking intel, just that they’re fucking creepy.” 

“I digress,” Phil replied. “Their existence alone is a security risk, especially considering recent developments.” 

“Recent developments?” Kyle asked, incredulous. Sophie kind of forgot he was a bit new to the boat, and was probably only following Eda because she was his CO.

“With the Chosen runnin’ about,” Sophie explained, “those kids are a liability even if they aren’t ayy rockers themselves. They find out they’re aboard, they’ll be chompin’ at the bit for a chance to take ‘em for… god knows what they do. Every second they’re on this ship puts my ass at risk.” 

“Exactly,” Alexios agreed. “Disposing of them quickly and efficiently is our safest option, even if it means we have to resort to violence.”

“Papa, not every problem can be shot,” Kassandra protested.

“I beg to differ.”

“Just because every problem  _ can  _ be shot doesn’t mean it should,” Murphy countered, leaning forward in his seat and placing an arm on the table. “Killing them outright isn’t an option, at least not until we know for sure they’re up to mischief. We can prove that? Then there’s no protest. We can’t, we’re gonna have Adam and Jane crawling up our asses until the ex-tees kill us all.”

“So what do we do?” Kyle asked. “Fabricate evidence, or somethin’?”

Murphy looked at Kyle as if he were the stupidest man on Earth.

“Not an option,” Eda replied. “All the systems aboard this ship make a job like that a suicide run. We’ll leave a footprint.” 

“And once again, we hit a dead end,” Phil said, clearly not happy that he was summoned for this. While the man was broad and tall, his fuse was miniscule, and he had little patience for foolishness. Sophie had an idea as to how to appease the big man, start laying the brickwork for a plan, and get these kids either in the act or off the boat, all at once. 

“I noticed something’ over the past day or so, boss,” she said, drawing the attention of the room back to her. The old restless leg started up almost immediately, and she hoped it wasn’t giving off the wrong impression. “JNPR. Somethin’ we might be able to work with.”

“Let’s hear it,” Kassandra replied. 

“The big girl. Pyrrha Nikos. She doesn’t look like she particularly enjoys being here. Not that any of them do, but I get the feeling she likes it the least. She’s nervous, twitchy. She doesn’t trust any of us.” 

“You think there’s a reason for that, besides our bedside manner?” Kassandra asked. 

“No, I don’t know that, but I do know that if we’re going to get them to fuck off, a good way to do that would be to make them not trust any of us, not just us that are onto their game,” Sophie replied. “We start makin’ lil’ accidents, frame things up a certain way, try to isolate them and make them think that it’s just the four of them against all of us. They’ll leave on their own.”

“It’s a good start, but I doubt we could make that happen,” Eda replied. “Gaslighting them into believing everyone on a ship of almost 200 hates their guts and wants them gone is a bit beyond our scope of psychological warfare. That being said, I think you’re right about Nikos 3. Something tells me she’s not gonna be a hard nut to crack, same with the leader, Jaune. You got a read on him?”

“He’s scared,” Murphy spoke up, frowning. “Out of his depth. He’s their ‘leader’, but you can tell he has no leadership experience. His team follows him out of loyalty, not respect for his competence. He can come up with a decent plan, saw that much in the cave, but as the core of the team, I’m not sure he’s all there, the others carry themselves like fighters, but he walks and talks like the schoolyard runt. Might be worth pushing that button a bit. Rattle his cage, maybe shake his confidence.”

“And how exactly are we going to do that?” Eda asked.

“Dunno,” Murphy replied. “That’s your problem. I’m not going to stick my neck out until I’ve got a good goddamn reason to.”

“Then why the hell are you even here?” Alexios asked, incensed, rising from his seat and towering over everyone that wasn’t Phil. “You really don’t believe these children came here by  _ accident _ , did you?”

“I don’t know,” Murphy replied, pulling the brim of his hat down and glaring at Alexios. “Convince me. You’ve been wrong multiple times over the past month, and you nearly got Fyodor killed. I’m not sure I want to take your word for anything.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Eda asked, her own temper flaring. “Whose side are you on?”

“XCOM’s.” 

“Murphy has a point, Papa,” Kassandra spoke up, trying to ease the tension. “We are acting as if they are already our enemy. Maybe this meeting was too sudden?”

“You seriously want us to just  _ trust  _ that they’re not going to drag us all down?” Sophie asked. It didn’t make sense. There was no net positive to having these kids aboard. If they really were aliens, and infiltrators, then XCOM was fucked. If they weren’t aliens, and weren’t infiltrators, then XCOM just got four more useless mouths to feed. If they were aliens, and weren’t infiltrators, well, XCOM just got four massive HVT’s packed into their ship, and all it would take was a single data breach and the Chosen would be on them like white on rice. “There’s no way keeping them on board this ship is a good thing!”

“And who gave you that intel, Sophie? You’re a  _ child _ ,” Murphy growled, leaning over in his seat. “A petulant, whining child who’s throwing a tantrum and tossing her toys out the pram because she can dish it out, but can’t take it. Am I right, or did you get that broken nose falling down the stairs? Sit down and let the grown-ups talk, or should I say  _ the grown up _ , because it seems like I’m the only one who’s actually using his bloody noggin’ here!” 

“Wh-I-you-I-you  _ son of a bitch _ ! Are you even listening to me?” Sophie was indignant, she had half a mind to jump out of her chair and throw a punch. The entire time he’d been in here, Murphy seemed intent on casting doubt on their decisions, trying to guilt them into staying their hand and delaying what was no doubt necessary. Even if it didn’t involve blasting them, these kids had to go, and Sophie wasn’t about to let a washed up vet with PTSD and a penchant for getting people shot dissuade her.

“Oh, I’m not done, sweetheart,” Murphy replied, looking at Eda. “We are going into this shit blind, with no intel, no real plan, and no evidence to back up our suspicions, yet I’m the only one in this room who seems to give two fucks about actually confirming that we’re not about to kill four  _ children _ . I don’t fucking like them, believe you me, I don’t trust any of them farther than I can throw ‘em. I want them gone. But I won’t jeopardize XCOM to do it. I already lost two men because I didn’t have the intel, because I rushed things and didn’t have all my ducks in a row before the shooting started. If we’re wrong, if we fuck this up, if we make the wrong call, we’re going to, at  _ best _ , end up with more problems than when we started. At worst, we just murdered four teenagers in cold blood on a  _ hunch _ . A fucking  _ hunch. _ ”

Murphy, stood up, pointing an accusatory finger at Alexios. “But you would be fine with that, wouldn’t you, Quisling? You sleep plenty fine at night with all the blood on your hands as it is.”

“You’re treading dangerous ground, Murphy,” Alexios stated, his voice low and dark. This was going to get ugly. “I may be getting old, but not nearly old enough to let that go.” 

“I’ve walked it all my life, you ancient fucking piker, and if you think I’m going to back off just because you have a killboner that will never go down, you’ve got another think coming.”

“We’re not  _ killing  _ anyone yet!” Eda roared, slamming her fists down on the table. “We’re putting our options on the table and deciding how we’re going to approach this problem. We cannot afford to fuck this up, and Murphy’s right- we can’t jeopardize the fight for Earth’s freedom just to kick them off the boat. We need to do this the right way, wait for the right opportunities. Until then, we can’t afford to be at each other’s throats. We need to have our guards  _ up _ and our eyes  _ open _ , you got me? NOTHING slips under our radar. If one of these kids even  **blinks** funny, then we need to know about it, but until we know they’re up to something… we can’t do much of anything, other than try and catch them in the act.”

“Exactly,” Murphy said, visibly relaxing and slowly slouching back into his seat with a long exhale. “If we’re going to do this, screamin’ about it’s not the way to go. Subtlety’s our best play. Subtlety, and an open mind. It’s entirely possible that we’re wrong, and these kids are genuine, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re a security risk. If it’s all dinki-di, well, we’re gonna have to work with that.  _ Some of us  _ had best learn to accept that.” 

“And how would you suggest we go about that?” Phil asked, finally speaking up again, having calmed down considerably himself. 

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Murphy said, pointedly looking at Eda. “Until then, I suggest we disperse for the eve and try to keep our heads on. If the kids really are on the level, they won’t be leaving their room for the rest of the evening. If they’re not, well, we won’t be the only ones who notice, yeah?”    
  
“Assassin’s bunk isn’t far from theirs,” Eda replied. “Phil, you mind keeping an ear open?”  
  
“ _ Oui _ ,” he replied. “I’ll see it done.”

With that, he was already on his feet and making for the door. It was obvious this wasn’t going the way he’d wanted it to, the same with Alexios. The old man in the room practically shoved past his own daughter just to get out, no doubt heading for the bar to harass whoever was there and drink away whatever Murphy was on about. It was no secret that Alexios had done  _ something  _ with ADVENT before, he and Joseph practically killed each other on day one over it, but she still hadn’t figured out what that was. Kyle seemed content to nervously smoke his cigarette, while Eda and Kass seemed to be intent on waiting out everyone else. Probably Warrior business. 

Sophie stood up, noting that Murphy did so almost exactly in sync with her, and headed to the door, hearing Murphy’s footsteps behind her. 

“Got some nerve,  _ George _ ,” she muttered once they were in the hall, looking over her shoulder to find the man looking at something else. Her eyes followed his gaze, only to find someone walking down the hallway away from them, seemingly unbothered by their presence. 

“What, now?” Murphy asked, obviously occupied with whoever that person was. Sophie didn’t recognize them. 

“I said, you have some nerve, calling me out like that. You’re in there playing captain contrarian for no good-” 

“Have you ever killed anyone, Thomas?”

The question was unusually quiet. Murphy’s normally at least a  _ bit  _ loud, monotone, a symptom of a lifetime of bullets and explosions, if you heard his telling of it. It makes moments like this, where his voice is barely above a whisper, all the more unnerving, because if he’s telling the truth then he’s saying it so quietly he can hardly hear his own voice. 

Sophie hesitated before answering. “Sure I have. You’ve seen me kill ADVENT.”

“You’ve never killed a  _ man _ , have you?” 

Sophie paused again, turning to face Murphy properly and noticing that, while he was glaring right at her, his eyes were obviously not  _ on  _ her. It was more like he was staring through her. 

“So what? That’s not what we’re here for, innit?” she replies, unsure of her answer. Murphy’s an odd man, with uncommon experience. God knows where this might go. 

Murphy simply sneered. With his eyes framed in darkness by the brim of his cap in the dim-lit hallway, and that damned look, Sophie felt like running in the exact opposite direction of him. Thankfully, he seemed to be not much in the mood for her further company either. Rather than heading to the Menace bunks, he’d started for the bar, too. 

Sophie let out a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding in, and slowly, unsteadily, started back to the bunkhouse. She needed a nap after all this contentious shite. 


	6. The Finger of Suspicion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two new threats make themselves known to JNPR and XCOM, and things rapidly reach a crisis point.

There were no alarm clocks on this ‘Avenger’ evidently. Pyrrha was always someone who woke to one, and her Scroll’s timing no doubt being incorrect meant that her usual alarm would most likely wake her up in the middle of the night, leaving her to rely on her last resort, the most accurate means of telling the time she had left to her. Her body.

Every day, she slept six hours. Eight was healthier, supposedly, but sleeping a full eight hours only made Pyrrha exhausted, so she never went more than six or less than four. She would have to rely on having gotten her six hours. 

Not that she could go outside, and check to see if the sun had risen, or to see if there were any windows. Leaving the bunkroom she’d been assigned during the middle of the night was a bad idea, what with the _wonderful_ environment she’d found herself in. 

Gently extricating herself from the thin, spartan sheets that covered the cot she now called her own, she sat up, long red tresses now loose from her usual high ponytail and framing her peripheral vision as she searched the room. Nora snored gently, facing the wall on the top bunk across from her, while beneath her, Ren laid still, only the slight rise and fall of his chest giving any indication that he was still breathing. Underneath her, on the bottom bunk, Jaune muttered something incoherent, no doubt dreaming. Hopefully it wasn’t a nightmare. 

Gently, she pushed herself off the bunk, landing with a dull _thud_ that, thankfully, roused no one. Jaune and Ren were both heavy sleepers, and Nora had obviously worn herself out enough to be quite out of it, leaving Pyrrha in a room with nothing but silence and dust.

As much as she would like to have her routine, it sadly seemed that she wouldn’t be able to get a workout this morning. It would be too loud to do calisthenics in the room with all of her teammates, and even pushups or situps would be a bit awkward in the dark. She had no idea if this ship had any exercise facilities (although, considering this was effectively a mobile infantry base, she would be shocked if they didn’t have any), but leaving the bunkroom was absolutely _not_ a safe option. That merely left what was normally the last part of her early-morning routine. 

A good, cold shower. 

Pyrrha stretched slowly, the taut muscle in her arms and back straining with inaudible pops as she rose to her full height, and then further, giving her neck a quick roll to one side, then the other, before making her way over to the communal latrine for the bunkroom. Adam was kind enough to tell JNPR the basics of the room, including the water rationing (which wasn’t as big of a deal when they were grounded, he had explained, but they were launching in the morning.) and where the spare clothing was kept. He’d taken the liberty of ballparking their sizes and bringing them some casual fatigues in case they wanted to change out of their clothes, and while Pyrrha didn’t feel _comfortable_ in them—they were a solid size too big in the shirt and another too small in the pants—she certainly appreciated the gesture. 

Feeling for the light switch, Pyrrha turned it on, revealing an LED screen in the corner of the mirror that sat parallel to the door, informing her that due to the water rationing policy, all showers would be capped at ten minutes in length. 

That, and that there was someone in the room behind her. 

There was someone in the room behind her.

Pyrrha whipped around, instinctively taking up a fighting stance and taking in a harsh breath as, indeed, a figure stood just through the threshold of the doorway, barely out of the light from the restroom. All she could really make out was a boot and a gloved fist, both of which rapidly retreated into the shadow of the doorway, which shut before Pyrrha could get a good eye on who it might be. 

Against her better judgement, she followed the figure into the hall, calling Miló to her hand as she opened the door, the blade soaring through just before the door shut. Using her Semblance, she found the locking mechanism, and locked it back in, then found a deadbolt that seemed to be intended for emergency use, judging by how robust it was, and locked that too. She could have sworn the door had been locked when her team went to sleep, but now, she was certain. 

Pyrrha had seen the figure break right out of the door, in a way that seemed to indicate they were heading into the main hall attached to the alcove. Behind her would be the reactor station, and in front of her would be a path to the commons. The hallway was barely lit, and it was obvious that everyone was trying to get some kind of sleep, save for the skeleton crew running the vessel. Dim red light illuminated all the halls, and everything in them, including, heading in the direction of the common area, the figure. 

They were fast, but Pyrrha would wager that she was a bit faster. Time to find out. 

Pyrrha had a feeling that nothing good would come from following this person, but this was a threat. A real, _credible_ threat to her team. Jaune, Nora and Ren were the closest thing she had to family-- in Vale, for certain-- and each of them held an equally dear place in her heart. An attack on Pyrrha was one thing. Being a champion in one of the most competitive combat leagues in the world taught one how to deal with adulation and visceral hatred in equal measure, and while not at all comforting, she was not afraid of XCOM for her own sake. She worried for her teammates, her _friends_ , and no one was going to threaten them without suffering consequences.

Then again, maybe she needed to calm down. She had noticed her team looking at her with a bit more concern than usual since they’d gotten to this ‘Earth’. Each one of them, now, had made an attempt to at least check if she was alright on three separate occasions, and Jaune had done his level best to assuage her worries, yet she just… couldn’t shake the feeling that they were in danger. Surely she wasn’t the only one? Was this just paranoia? Did she merely imagine a threat in the middle of the night because she forgot to lock the door, or because she had a nightmare and couldn’t remember it, or just because she was a 17 year old young woman who had somehow ended up on another planet with no way home and she was just plain _scared_ ?   
  
Shifting her weapon with a louder-than-her-preference _clank_ to sword form, she took off after the figure, bare feet stinging with each heavy impact against the bone-cold floor grates of the Avenger. The figure obviously wasn’t having this problem, dipping into the bar where JNPR had met the motley crew that formed XCOM, and she followed in hot pursuit, arriving just in time to have a chair thrown in her face, obscuring her view, making a lot of racket, and allowing the figure a moment to hide its features and continue on its escape route. By the time she’d set the chair down and made her way out of the room, the figure was nowhere to be found. The bar seemed to have many branching paths to it, ones that Pyrrha had yet to be familiarized with, and whoever this mystery person was, their footsteps were remarkably quiet. While she hadn’t really thought about it that much in the heat of the chase, it was now apparent how eerily quiet things were. 

She’d lost her mark, and now was left with the question of not only _who_ was in the room, but _why_. 

It suddenly occurred to Pyrrha that she might have been set up. Getting her out of her room in the middle of the night, dragging her out into the middle of the biggest junction in the ship that she’d yet seen, with no idea where to go other than backwards, it all made an eerie amount of sense. 

As much as she wanted to pursue this figure, perhaps discretion, for once, was the better part of valor. She would tell Grace, Adam, and whoever else would listen about this intrusion whenever this second attempt at a meeting between JNPR and ‘Menace’ and ‘Hitman’ teams would be called, but for now, the best idea would be to lock down the room and stay awake. 

Pyrrha retreated, heading back through the bar and hoping against hope that no one had heard the chair. Somehow, they hadn’t—the chair was on the floor where she’d dropped it after catching it, and the bar was otherwise undisturbed. 

No point in sticking around to find out if anyone was coming, regardless. If the door wasn’t still locked when Pyrrha got back, someone on this ship was going to suffer. Slowing down a bit, she tried her best to set a brisk, yet quiet as possible pace as she jogged out of the bar, back into the long hallway that led to the reactor room. It wasn’t far to reach her room now, not that it mattered, as the first thing she saw upon entering the hallway was Adam, eyes and exposed arms both aglow with that unhealthy color she’d noticed about him earlier. He was holding a pistol in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and in the dim light his pale, gaunt features looked downright rakish, like a Grimm made in the visage of man. 

His eyes met hers, and she stopped cold, dropping Miló and placing her hands up as Adam’s aim and flashlight both trained on her, blinding her momentarily as she heard the man plant his foot on the floor, no doubt bracing his aim and preparing to do something drastic.

That something drastic never came, the flashlight lowering from Pyrrha’s face and allowing her to see the man, and the confusion on his face, clearly.

“Christ, Nikos, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked, keeping his voice down, much to Pyrrha’s surprise. “Making a racket in the bar with your weapon at three in the fucking morning?” 

“I’m sorry!” she started, only for Adam to cut her off before she could even think of getting into the explanation.

“Don’t be sorry, start explaining. There was a security breach that originated in your room and the cameras in there are out of order. Someone unlocked your door, then locked it back again and hit the dead man’s switch that’s normally activated in the event of a hard crash. What are you doing out of the room?” 

A security breach? Oh, _Brothers_ , this wasn’t just some half-dreaming fit of paranoia, this was actually happening.

“I woke up and was going to take a shower, since I can’t exactly go about my normal routine right now,” Pyrrha replied, doing her best to level her tone and keep quiet. “When I turned on the lights and looked in the mirror, I saw... _someone_. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I assumed I wasn’t just imagining things, and chased them into the bar. On my way out, I locked the door to the room in case they, or someone else, came back… I used my Semblance to find another—”

“Mary, full of grace, the fuck is a _Semblance_?” Adam asked, clearly incensed.

“Special abilities powered by Aura, I can manipulate metallic objects!” Pyrrha replied quickly, unintentionally raising her voice. “I felt another lock in the door and locked it, and chased this person, but I couldn't find them so I went to go back to our room. Then, I found you, and here we are, with you pointing a gun in my face.” 

Adam paused, digesting Pyrrha’s explanation as his expression morphed from one of confusion to a distant acknowledgement, and then, startlingly, to a dimly-glowing _rage_. 

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Pyrrha said, “but it’s the truth.”

“I _fucking_ believe you,” Adam practically snarled, giving his pistol a quick flip as he placed it in a holster on his belt. “We’re going back to your room and securing you, then, I’m setting out a general alert. I’ve had _enough_ of this fucking crew.” 

“That’s not necessary, we—” Pyrrha began again, to no avail. 

“Oh, it’s well _bloody_ necessary, love, Joseph wouldn’t lie to me about this. He’s the one who called in the security breach, he’s been on the cameras this entire time.” 

Wait, someone was on the cameras? _Joseph_ was on the cameras?

“Did you see who it was?” she asked.

“That’s the problem, the cameras aren’t bloody working, I’ll explain on the way to the room. Come on.” 

With that, Adam looped an arm around Pyrrha’s shoulders and pushed her back towards the room. He wasn’t that much taller than her, and a good bit thinner, yet in this position, she felt absolutely tiny. The man seemed intent on hiding her from as many prying eyes as possible on the way back to the bunkroom.

“Joseph noticed something odd about the bar feed. I heard a noise from the bar, but he said that nothing had happened on cameras, no one had passed through, nothing, even though the noise I heard was far too loud to just be my very vivid imagination. I heard you come through the bar before you came out into the hall, and, oddly enough, Joseph, thorough, reliable Joseph, never made a callout like a responsible fucking soldier. You know, like the kind of soldier he, among a gaggle of ne’er-do-wells and misfits, actually _is_?”

“What about the room?” Pyrrha asked.

“The camera in there hasn’t been in use for years, and it’s not working. It was basically just a backup storage room with a few beds in it, don’t even think the TV in there works anymore,” Adam explained. “You were being monitored by us, sorry to say it, but we weren’t intruding on your privacy. Obviously, we didn’t intrude _enough_.” 

Pyrrha wasn’t surprised that she was being spied on, but considering the circumstances, the annoyance she felt at that knowledge was miniscule in comparison to the concern she had for her team. She hoped that this hadn’t been some elaborate diversion to get her away from them, though why she’d be singled out, she had no idea. They hadn’t even done anything wrong, and yet someone had barged into their lodgings in the middle of the night with _Brothers-knew-what_ on their mind. Why? More importantly than why, who? 

It wasn’t a terribly long trip to the bunkroom. Thankfully, nothing had changed since she’d last been here. Adam busied himself unlocking the door, then motioned for her to get inside.

“I’m calling the alert now. We’ll sort this out. Team’s gonna be coming over here, but until I open this door, stay calm and stay inside, yeah? You see anything suspicious, you let me know.”

“Alright,” Pyrrha replied, pulling the deadbolt open with her Semblance. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Pyrrha almost laughed. _No problem_ , he said. The door opened, and Pyrrha slipped back inside, her team evidently not even having noticed she’d left. Everyone was in their right place, sleeping as if none of the past few minutes had even happened. A part of her wanted to just… leave them there. Let them rest. They deserved it, after all they’d been through up to now. 

Alas, she reasoned, they also deserved to know what just happened.

This wasn’t going to be a very good morning.

Making her way to her bunk, she got down on one knee and placed her hand on her leader’s shoulder, giving him a gentle nudge. “Jaune. Jaune, wake up.”

* * *

Fyodor, for the first time in a long time, felt true, resounding _anger_ as he made his way to JNPR’s bunkroom. He had known that XCOM had… _issues_ when he joined. He’d heard the rumors of the organization created by the United Nations to fight the initial alien invasion, and the desperate resistance they’d formed in the meantime. Similar actions had gone down in the Ukraine, with organizations formerly protesting against encroachment by the Russian government and her proxies rapidly reforming into anti-alien militias before being utterly annihilated. An AKM and anarchist theory didn’t do much to a Sectopod. 

All that being said, and with him being a scholar of Proudhon, Kropotkin and Déjacque, this was not the kind of ‘anarchy’ he had been preaching. Before the children had arrived, things were not at all ideal, but they resembled function. His team, though not perfect, got results. D.D. liked to get drunk and fight, Joseph didn’t trust his own skill and ran himself to the bone in pursuit of ‘better’, Alexios would rage and rage and not tell any of them why, and Spencer took nothing seriously until he was quite literally on death’s door, but they were a team, and they could function in the field. Now, Alexios wouldn’t even share a bunkroom with them, apparently storming off to go work off steam in the GTS all night, refusing to speak to anyone but his daughter. D.D. was drinking for the majority of the night, every night, and when Fyodor attempted to ask them why, they, in a frightening change of pace, asked _politely_ to be left alone. Spencer, with his missing eye, was a hollow shell of the easygoing man he once was, putting on airs of being Spencer Baumain without doing any of the things that made him...well, _him_. As it stood, it seemed only Joseph and Lais were their normal selves, and even then, Joseph insisted on spending more time on the security rotation now that the kids were around ‘so tha’ nae silly shite happens’ in his own words, and Lais’ daily prayers were now less for protection for himself, but for peace on the ship, and understanding in its crew. 

And now, someone had snuck into JNPR’s lodgings, with nothing good on their mind, no doubt, and somehow, Joseph hadn’t caught it. God, the poor man probably fell asleep at the console, running himself as ragged as he was. 

Adam had set the general alarm off, and then called Fyodor. He wanted a meeting of Menace and Hitman teams, as they were both first contact, and the people Adam could count on the most. Fyodor had his suspicions that those weren’t the only reasons, but that was something that could wait for the discussion. 

Why the hell Adam thought it was a good idea to have this discussion at 3:15 in the _fucking morning_ was more likely the first question Fyodor would ask him. He had told Fyodor he was securing the children’s room anyhow. They’d have been fine until the morning.

The meeting place, of course, was the security room, as Joseph refused to leave, even with the general alert, and now that Fyodor was here, he was starting to understand why.

“I’ll explain more tae ye when th’ithers turn up, sir, but...aye, it’s nae good. Pure ill, all o’ it,” he ‘explained’, his thick accent only decipherable to Fyodor through years of experience with the man, motioning to the cameras which still showed the entire hallway Adam had apparently patrolled to be completely empty, with no alert in sight. 

“ _Bozhe moy_ , Joey,” Fyodor muttered, looking to see if the timestamp had even changed on the footage. As expected, it hadn’t, which meant that the cameras went down at about 2:57 AM. According to his watch, it was approaching 3:15. Plenty of time to do bad business. “Do you have any idea where we need to start looking?”

“Tha’s th’ask, ain’t it?” he replied, leaning back in his chair, bloodshot, bleary blue eyes made all the more prominent by the low light coming from the screens. Joseph looked absolutely _ragged_ , and as the door opened behind them, Fyodor found that most of the group didn’t look much better. Lais and Spencer stepped in first, the former’s normally well-groomed hair and beard frazzled and wild at such an early hour, the latter not even having time to re-wrap his eye with fresh bandages, leaving the ones he had on to hang slightly loose and show a peek of desiccated skin. Behind them, D.D entered, their hair loose and falling down to their shoulders in a decidedly womanly manner—Fyodor made a mental note to acknowledge the sign—with an obviously wired Jerry and entirely nonplussed Roderick following suit, stunning Fyodor with the fact that, for once, nothing was covering Roderick’s head. Mind, he was still wearing a mask, but the fact that Roderick now had a head full of black hair peppered with silver was an entirely new development. Funny, he always thought the man would be younger, from how he carried himself. He had to be at least close to Fyodor’s age to be going gray. 

“The others?” he asked.

“AJ’s making sure the kids are tucked in nice and comfy,” D.D. said, brushing some of their hair out of their face. “Took my last bottle of gin with him.”

“Good thing, last thing we need is you drunk for this shit,” Roderick grumbled, scratching his hair. “I’m on three hours of sleep and my guard rotation is supposed to start in two, so let’s hurry this shit up, yeah?”

“What’s the reason for the alert?” Lais asked, “and why did Captain Jones only call us together for a meeting?”

“Nothing good,” Spencer said, attempting to tighten his bandages. “Just hope the kids are alright. We’re a rough bunch, but _sacredamn_ , I’d like to think that we’re above… _whatever_ has Jones so riled up.” 

“Nae ingress tha’ I can see, lads,” Joseph noted. “‘S’only th’cameras in that particular stretch o' loaby ‘twixt th’bar an’ the engine, cannae board th’vessel from th’far back.”

“You’d have caught it if someone boarded the vessel or made their way through the bar or the stairwell,” Jerry continued, finishing Joseph’s reasoning for him. He was a smart young man, when he got his mental business together. “That’s the only two ways to get to that hall unless you breach the hull, and that's definitely gonna set off an alert.” 

“And we’re in the fuckin’ air. Nobody’s gonna board us here,” D.D. added.

“Not without making a hell of a racket _and_ showing up on radar,” Roderick agreed. “Whatever caused the alert is aboard the ship right now, and has been for quite a while.”

In the midst of the conversation, Fyodor noticed Murphy, Remi, and Sophie arriving, leaving only Alexios and Adam unaccounted for.

“So nice of you to join us, Soho,” D.D. greeted her eternal nemesis with fake cheer.

“Go suck-start an X-4 charge, Yank,” Sophie half-yawned. “The fuck’s on, then?”

“I can only assume we’re dealing with something regarding the children, _non_?” Remi asked, running a hand through the intricate floral patterns shaved into the sides of his head. “There would be no other reason for you two to call only our teams. Then again, why wouldn’t you call a general quarters?”

“Couldn’t tell ya that,” Murphy said, straightening out his shoulder-length blonde curls in an attempt, however vain, to look professional at 3:20 in the morning. “Assume it’s ‘cause we’re the only blokes aboard that Jones can trust. Especially after that mess in the bar yesterday.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt that.” Spencer agreed, before scanning the room with an inquisitive eye. “Say… anybody notice any cause for alarm last night? Maybe there’s something Joey didn’t see that we did.”

“Nothing particularly interesting,” Lais replied. “Another day at the office.”

“Lex was in a fouler mood than usual, but I don’t think that would be any cause for alarm,” D.D. noted. “Kass was tryna talk him down, I reckon. I never saw him back in our room, so I’m guessin’ he’s still with her.” 

“That so?” Roderick asked. “I actually saw something _really_ interesting yesterday, a little bit after the meeting. See, I was just cruising through the halls, as I often do, being a damn good soldier of the Resistance, if I do say so myself—”

“Are you bleedin’ serious right now, Rod?” Murphy asked, exasperated.

“Without the theatrics, _s'il te plaît_?” Remi agreed, making a ‘move along’ motion with his hand. 

“Fine, fine… lo and behold, I come across this—”

“Any of you lot seen Alexios?” Adam interrupted, poking his head through the door just as Roderick got to the actually _relevant_ part of his tall tale, drawing a frustrated huff of air from the American. “Don’t want to start this without him.”

“D.D. just said he was with Kassandra,” Jerry replied. “Might still be there.”

“She hasn’t seen him all night, that was at 2030,” Adam replied, leery. “Joey, check the cameras.” 

“Aye, sir.”

With that, Fyodor turned and watched as his second went through the camera feeds, eventually finding Alexios approaching their position from… the engineering bay? What the hell was he doing in Engineering this late at night?

“How long’s he been in there?” Fyodor asked.

“I saw him passin’ tha’ way at 2200, sir, but he left about 2245, did nae go back o’er there tha’ I can recall,” Joseph replied. “May have missed it, sir.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Joseph, we can question him about it when he arrives,” Fyodor replied. “You’re exhausted, I wouldn’t be surprised if a minor detail like that slipped by you. You didn’t see him heading towards that dead zone, no?”

“Nae, sir.” 

“We’ll wait for him here, then,” Adam stated firmly, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. “I want complete radio silence. No contact with anyone else aboard this vessel about what we’re doing here. Now, Rod, what were you saying?”

“Actually, come to think of it…” Roderick said, his smirk underneath the mask evident by the tone of his voice. “I _think_ it might be better if I wait for Sexy Lexy to get in here. He’s gonna love this.”

“I bet,” Adam replied sarcastically, turning his attention back to the hallway and letting a tense silence fall over the room. It was only about two or three minutes before Alexios Nikos arrived, clearly sleep-deprived and even more haggard-looking than he usually did—for a man rapidly approaching 50 after years of hard and unhealthy living, that was saying something. Fyodor couldn’t help but wonder if all of that bourgeois hedonism was worth it, now that Alexios could see what it availed him and the rest of humankind, how his creation _touched_ so many lives. Nevertheless, Fyodor couldn’t hate the man. He clearly regretted his actions to some extent, and it was evident that he loved his daughter far more than any machine bearing his programming. 

“So, Corporal, what were you doing in Engineering this early?” Adam asked, clearly agitated, seemingly waiting for a reason to explode. The Captain had a lot going on, from what little Fyodor was clued in on by the Commander, but he managed to keep it bottled up well, save for the occasional operational catastrophe. Recent events being as they were, and unit cohesion suddenly and inexplicably exploding into tiny little shards were obviously taking their toll on the veteran, though, and something told him this little exchange would end badly.

“My PDA is fucking missing,” Alexios replied, “ _Ai gamisou_ , what the fuck crawled up your ass and died this morning, eh?” 

“Somebody broke into JNPR’s quarters and the camera systems didn’t catch it,” Adam replied, pointing to Joseph. “The cameras have been down for almost 30. Bloody. Minutes. And that’s not even getting into the shit I just learned about one of our houseguests.”

“Oh, do tell,” Alexios drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Do they like crochet? Did one of them offer to wash your feet for you? Or perhaps-”

“Can I ask a question right quick?” Roderick interrupted, still sounding as smug as he had when he started his story.

“What do you fucking want?” Alexios asked.

“When were you going to tell Captain Jones that you were planning to kill those kids?”

The room fell silent once again, and the tension suddenly ramped up to chilling proportions. Fyodor had no idea where this came from, but there was no need for a fight like this right now. It was too early in the morning.

“Or,” Roderick continued, “maybe Sophie can give us a better idea. Or Murphy? You were there too, weren’t you, _Greg_?” 

“You’re talkin’ out the side of your mouth, now,” Sophie said, in a way that made it clear that Roderick was telling the absolute truth. The man was a goofball, and a bit evasive at the best of times, but Fyodor had yet to hear him lie.

“Oh, _merde_ ,” Remi muttered under his breath. 

“Am I, Sophie?” Roderick asked. “Am I? Or did I just happen to walk up on the wrong meeting you and Murphy were walking out of. You know, the one where Murphy was pretty much single-handedly talking you down from committing quadruple homicide-slash-psychological warfare? I may be dumb, but I’m not by any means stupid.”

“Oh-ho- _hoooo_ ,” D.D. guffawed, “gaht- **damn** , you are turbo-fucked right now, dude.”

“S-shut up, you tramp, this is ridiculous!” Sophie protested weakly, obviously caught out. Much to Fyodor, and everyone else’s surprise, Murphy stepped in front of her, nodding.

“Yeah. We were there,” he replied. “And like you said, I tried to talk it down. These kids, whether you like it or not, are a genuine security risk. Cap, what were you going to say about the kid? What you learned?”

Adam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with a slightly-glowing hand, a single vein running across the back of it pulsing dull orange. “Pyrrha has something called a ‘Semblance’ that allows her to affect metal near her. She used it to lock her team in the room while she pursued the intruder.” 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Jerry said, dumbfounded. “What about the others?”

“Don’t know, but I intend to find out first thing tomorrow,” Adam replied. “You’re right, Murphy. These kids _are_ a security risk, but what’ll be worse is if ADVENT gets a hold of them. We can’t just bloody throw them outside and leave them to the wolves, and honestly, even if you want to kill them? I’m starting to wonder if you can. You saw what Beta put them through. Not even a bruise on any of ‘em.” 

“The shit Beta was doing would have killed any of us,” Roderick agreed. “And those kids walked out of that cave under their own power without even sweating. I don’t know what you think you can do to ‘em, Sophie.”

“That’s not the bloody point!” Sophie protested once more, stepping out from behind Murphy. “What does this have to do with their room getting broken into? If they’re so scared of us, surely they’d lock their fucking doors!” 

“The door was unlocked by someone outside the room,” Adam replied. “Someone with the access codes for it, which means either a ranking officer or someone with the master control codes.”

Fyodor’s eyes drifted to Alexios first. It wasn’t long before others did so too.

“I don’t have my fucking PDA,” Alexios stated, eerily calm. “I just. Told you.” 

“Why were you in Engineering?” Adam repeated.

“That was the last place I had it,” Alexios explained. “H4V-C was malfunctioning again, and I went to talk to Lily about running some diagnostics, seeing what we could do to fix him.”

As a specialist, Alexios took good care of his GREMLIN unit most of the time. Odd that it would falter on him now, of all the times. 

“You can ask Lily,” Alexios continued. “She was there.”

“Did you find your PDA?” Adam asked.

“I wouldn’t be saying I’ve _lost_ it in the present tense if I _had_ it in the present tense, now, would I, you fucking imbecile!?” Alexios shouted, slamming his fist against the doorframe. “ _Malaka_ , you’re fucking deaf.”

“What has gotten into us?” Remi asked no one in particular. “This is not business as usual. Sophie and D.D. being at odds is normal, _oui_ , but we can hardly stand each other now. What’s changed in the past three days?”

“I agree,” Fyodor stated, putting on his _Colonel Voice_ . “We all need to calm down and _think_ before we proceed. If Lily corroborates Alexios’ story, then that rules him out as being the mystery intruder, but it means that someone stole his PDA. That makes sense, yes?”

“Aye, I can take a keek a’ th’cameras, see if anyone’s been skulkin’ aboot,” Joseph agreed, turning his attention back to his cameras. “Engineerin’s cameras are bloody braw, I think.” 

“In the meantime,” Adam continued, pointing to Sophie, “you’re about an inch away from a disciplinary, so I suggest you tell me who the fuck else was in that meeting, and quick-like.”

“Remi’s shadow was lurkin’ about, same with Alex and his daughter,'' Sophie replied, quick as lightning. “So was Eda and one of her rookies, kid named Kyle, with a big-arse beard.” 

“Snitching at the speed of sound,” Roderick noted, drawing Fyodor’s ire. This was not doing anyone any good, and Spencer, thank God, agreed with him.

“ _Tabernak_ , Roderick, could you quit being you for five seconds while we try to get to the bottom of this?” Spencer asked. “Is that so much to ask?”

Roderick didn’t reply, instead leaning back against the wall with a smug look in his eyes.

“Thank you, Jesus. Anyhow, we’ve deduced that whoever broke into their room was probably at that meeting, yeah?” 

“ _Oui_ ,” Remi agreed, “which leaves us with Murphy, Sophie, Phillipe, Alexios, Kassandra, _et_ Sergeant Hamadou. I can tell you now that if it was Phil, then he has a twin running around the vessel. He told me about the meeting shortly before he went to bed, and he was asleep for a solid hour before I started to nod off, at least, I assume he was. Might be better to ask Sergeant Seok about that.” 

“I’ll make note of that,” Adam replied.

“My daughter would do no such thing,” Alexios stated. “She’s not that type of woman.”

“And you’re not that type of man?” Roderick asked, barely suppressing a giggle that made Fyodor want to slap the man cross-eyed. 

“You will _leave my daughter out of this._ ” 

“Trust me, Alexios, nobody here believes Kass would resort to such a thing,” Fyodor assured his subordinate, looking to Adam. “Right?”

“You’re right. She’s not been feeling well recently, either, has she? No shape to be running down these halls, and certainly not near-silently.”

“I thought we were going to leave _that_ between officers,” Alexios snarled, and Fyodor was suddenly reminded of… the sensitive subject matter in question. Adam, for his part, visibly softened, his frustration still present, but tempered by a sort of solemnness that Fyodor saw on him every morning, and every night. A man who had confronted just such things, and worse, before.

“We can safely rule out Kassandra,” Adam agreed, his tone still firm, but not nearly as on-edge as previous. “Look… we all need to cool off. I understand that we’re all worried about what’s going on, now, but we’re a unit. Biting each other’s heads off about this is only going to make us weaker in the long run, especially with the current situation. ADVENT’s not going to wait for us to play kiss-and-make-up to come itchin’ for a scrap, so we need to get to the bottom of this quickly and decisively.”

“I agree,” Fyodor said. “Picking fights with one another and throwing accusations around will do us no good. Let us be honest with each other, and do what we should have done in the first place—bring our concerns to the command staff in a civil and respectful manner.” 

“That sounds like a much better idea than all this yelling,” Lais said, relieved. “It’s too early in the morning. We’re better than this, friends.”

“Some friends you are,” Sophie grumbled quietly, seemingly shrinking in on herself and taking a step back towards the door, where Alexios still stood. 

“Sophie,” Fyodor asked. “What did you do after the meeting Roderick spoke of?”

“We’re not accusing you of anything,” Adam hastily added. 

“Not _yet,_ anyway,” Roderick finished, drawing a downright _murderous_ glare from… of all the people, Jerry. 

“Shut up, dude,” Jerry pleaded plaintively.

“Oh, look who’s standin’ up for Soho. Wasn’t she the one saying you were better off dead, from your telling?” D.D. asked, throwing Sophie a disdainful look. “Talkin’ all that good shit about how useless you and Murphy were, right?”

“What did I just say?” Fyodor asked, vainly attempting to steer the conversation back. “What did I _just_ say?”

“Friends, _please_ -” Lais begged.

“Christ Crucified-” Spencer moaned.

“Oh, like we even need to ask who’s stupid enough to try and ambush a bunch of sleeping kids-” D.D. continued.

“We need to get back on track-” Remi uselessly protested before—

 **“A’BODY** **_SHUT TAE FOOK UP!_ ** **”** Joseph _screamed_ , a cracking, warbling protest that all but deafened everybody in the cramped security room. “SHUT! UP! I CANNAE FOCUS ON _ANYTHIN’_ WIT’ YE ALL SCREAMIN’ FOOKIN’ MURDER A’ EACH’ITHER! SHUT! UP!” 

Before anyone could attempt to protest, Joseph rolled out his chair and pointed at the screen. “Since not one of ye could be buggered to listen to me, ye might have missed tha’ I clocked how our skulker snuck intae Engineering a’ aboot 11:30, nae long past when dear Lex was faffin’ aboot wit’ H4V-C. Weren't in there fer more than a minute, but our bonnie lass Lily, wit’ her _infinite_ knowledge an’ that, left the FOOKIN’ DOOR OPEN!”

Silence. Near-total silence. If anyone thought of saying anything, they thought better quickly, Fyodor included. The only thing that managed to break it was Joseph’s labored breathing as he stretched his arms out wide, obviously in distress. 

“Now, are we done screamin’ a’ each’ither?” he asked. “Fook’s sake.”

“I think we should move on, aye,” Adam agreed. “So, where were we?”

“We’d cleared Alexios and Kassandra of suspicion, and Phil’s likely clear as well,” Jerry answered, still uneasy from all the shouting. “I, uh, think that you were asking Sophie about what she did after the meeting.”

“I went and got a bite to eat,” Sophie replied, small, almost mousy. “Salad. Same thing we always have on this boat if it isn’t tank meat, innit?”

“Yes, I saw you near the galley,” Lais said, retaining his kind, gentle tone as he took a step towards Sophie and smiled, obviously trying to get her to let her guard down. “Please, go on.” 

“Th-then I went back to my bunk,” she replied.

“When?” Remi asked. 

“At about 2200,” she replied uneasily.

“Odd that I didn’t see you, then, _ma cher_. I was watching the Arsenal game.” 

“Sophie,” Adam began, stern, yet slightly less stern than he’d begun the conversation. “Where did you go after you passed through the galley?”

Sophie didn’t respond. Beside her, Murphy’s expression darkened, and the young Brit’s eyes cut back and forth between Alexios and Adam in rapid succession. Was she going to try and run? 

“Private Thomas, I am going to ask you again,” Adam repeated. “Where. Did. You. Go?”

“You went to Engineering,” Murphy said. “Didn’t you?” 

Sophie didn’t immediately respond. 

“When did you go to Engineering?” he asked, far more gently than Adam had. Adam had brought the stick, and it seemed that Murphy would bring the carrot for them. 

“About an hour after.”

“When specifically?” 

“I don’t remember the exact time.”

“Why?”

Sophie, once again, turtled up. She looked like she was about to cry. Fyodor felt like he’d been stabbed in the gut. Sophie wasn’t the nicest girl, but it wasn’t her fault. From what he’d read of the personnel report Bradford had made on her, she was a very unfortunate girl placed into circumstances no one should have to deal with. That she would be driven to paranoia was not surprising considering those circumstances. But, to this? 

“I…” she started, sounding for all the world like she was teetering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown. 

“You _what_?” Roderick asked with uncharacteristic venom, to the point that Jerry visibly flinched. 

“Can it, Braddock, let the poor girl talk,” Fyodor said, turning to the man in question just as he turned to him. “She is obviously suffering enough without your incessant jabbing.” 

“Oh, come on now, don’t act like she’s innocent here.”

“You’re throwing a lot of accusations,” Fyodor said, folding his arms. “What about you? What were you doing after this meeting you _just so happened_ to stumble upon?”

“I went to the galley, too. Got a salad and some fresh oranges that Den Mother dropped off for us. Sophie, did you get one of those oranges?”

“Y-yeah,” Sophie replied uneasily.

“Boom. Then, I went to the bunkroom to catch the Arsenal game. Did I not, Remi? Did. I. Not?”

“You have no interest in football, but yes, you were there,” Remi admitted, almost begrudgingly. 

“Boom. Then, I went by the bar with D.D. to get an evening drink on and talk about cute boys and painting our nails.”

D.D. snickered and shook her head. “Yeah, dumbass, it was fun.”

“Boom. I was back in Menace’s bunks by 23:35 on the dot. The. Dot. Half of my merry band of idiots was asleep, and the only people unaccounted for were Murphy, Sophie, and Adam. Cap, where were you?”

“Talking with CIO Kelly on the bridge.”

“And they say the Captain doesn’t get any pussy.”

“You mind repeating that?” Adam asked, with the stone-cold tone of a man who was about to engage in a heinous act of violence. 

“Murphy,” Roderick continued, ignoring just how close he was to flirting with death, “what about you?”

“I was in the GTS getting my evening laps in,” Murphy replied. “Kass Nikos was in there doing some work too, same with Van Pey and the new girl, Simonev.” 

“Uh-huh. Which, of course, brings us back to our dear girl, Sophie.”

“Funny that for all this suspicion you’re throwing around, you disqualified me based on my statement that I lost my PDA,” Alexios interrupted. 

He...had a really good point there. Fyodor was glad he wasn’t the only one noticing that Roderick seemed hyperfocused on Sophie right now, when there was still at least one other suspect, if not two. 

“And that’s not even getting into Sergeant Hamadou. None of us questioned if she might be the one behind this,” Alexios continued. “Not a single person here has vouched for her, nor for her new rookie. For all we know, she bullied the poor boy into doing her bidding and somehow, my PDA got lost in the shuffle. I could be lying to you. Murphy could be lying to you. Hell, _Roderick_ could be lying to you.”

“I have done a lot of things in my life, Lex, not all of them good, but I do not _fucking lie_. It’s a waste of breath.”

“Exactly what a liar would say.” 

Roderick had no reply for that, and while Fyodor found Alexios’ logic sound, the fact was, if he was at the bar with D.D. when he said he was, it was at least a solid five minutes walk to Engineering, then another five or more to get to Menace’s bunks. He wouldn’t have been able to get back to the bunkroom when he said he did in that amount of time, and he could account for everyone that was in the room at the time. 

“Remi, were you in the room when Roderick said he got back?” Fyodor asked.

“I was asleep by then,” Remi confessed. “Before the game, I’d been working on the new EMP devices all day. I was very tired.”

“He walked me back to the room a bit before then,” D.D. said.

Wait. _Before_ then?

Even with one eye, Spencer’s perception had not dulled, his eye rapidly training on Fyodor just as Fyodor looked at him, the sniper nodding as he turned his attention to D.D. “About how long before, doll?”

“I don’t fuckin’ remember, I was buzzed. Still am, kinda.”

“How convenient,” Spencer drawled in his thick Quebecois accent, looking over at Roderick. “One of your witnesses is asleep and the other wasn’t quite sober enough to remember the time. Roderick, you said you _never_ lie. How much earlier did you bring D.D. back from the bar, and what did you do in the meantime?” 

“I brought her back at 2310 and went looking for Sophie,” Roderick admitted readily. “I didn’t find her, and went back to the room for 2235. You can pull up the camera feed. See if I’m lying.” 

Well, so much for that ‘lead’. Now they were back to Sophie, whose nerves had obviously frayed further. Before the accusations could resume, however, something happened.

“Uh, Adam?” Joseph asked, a tremor in his voice just barely slipping through.

“What is it, Joey?” Adam asked, picking up on the man’s unease and looking over at the cameras. Fyodor did the same, looking at the monitor Joseph was pointing at and inhaling sharply.

A _fucking UFO._ Now, of all the times.

“It’s slipped through our radar, I dinnae how,” Joseph stammered, “we need tae get th’alert goin’.”

“We’ll circle back to this shite later, then, everyone, gear up! I’ll go secure JNPR for a possible hard landing, Jerry, Murphy, you’re with me. Joseph, get the prototype from Engineering, meet up with Lily and she’ll walk you through it, tell her it’s on my authority.” Adam ordered, effortlessly shifting to his combat demeanor and activating his comms headpiece, his voice reverberating through the PA as he spoke. “Attention, all hands, general quarters! Man your battle stations! We have an ADVENT interceptor in hot pursuit, bearing November-One-One! I repeat, cloaked ADVENT interceptor spotted at close range, bearing November-One-One, gear up for immediate contact!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, another chapter of JNPR getting terrorized and having a smaller POV than the XCOM guys. This was a common complaint in the original version of OGH, and I feel like I ought to at least explain my reasoning to you, the reader. I wager that 90 percent of you are here to read about RWBY. You know the series, and you love it. I do too. The characters are established, they have their characterization written out and set in stone, I am merely establishing it and extrapolating it based on the events occurring in the story. On the other hand, the XCOM characters, with a few exceptions, are entirely original content. I understand that some of you are just here for Godzilla, and I'm sorry if there isn't enough figurative Gojira in my figurative kaiju flick for you. : ( 
> 
> Anyway, moving on- so, yeah! UFO snuck up on the Avenger, as they often do, and things might be getting really, really bad here shortly. For those of you that have been on my ride before, y'all probably think you know where this is going...ohohohoho, you sweet summer children.

**Author's Note:**

> You probably noticed a lot of characters are different from the originals if you read the original OGH. Don't worry about it.
> 
> For those of you that are new on the scene, bienvenue! I'm Shockfactor, a writer famous for their dead doves, shitty writing, and very, very, very, very, VERY prominent fondness for the acute angel named Pyrrha Nikos. Enjoy my garbage, read and review, and be ready- this is gonna be a wild ride.


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